Sum of Memories

Chapter 1: Likeness.

"Those who come to the sea will always return to it. Whether they're alive or dead is another matter entirely."

June 9, 1715. Caribbean Sea.

"Wyt ti'n hoffi dyri, Derwydd? Hob y deri dando… Unwaith oerais i o'th herwydd! Dyna ganu eto…"

The day was not particularly unpleasant, for being smack-dab in the middle of the hurricane season. Edward Kenway leaned upon the Jackdaw's wheel, breathing deeply and contentedly of the briny air as he sang softly. Their destination was coming up soon: they had heard of a merchant vessel that had recently been shipwrecked out here, and as of the moment, her contents were free for the taking. Opportunistic as he was, he had no desire to resist the lure of fresh supplies, especially when they needed the money.

"Ym mhob ardal y may brydôn! Canig hen y co'… Pwy na allant ddweud penillion! Hen gân co'… Canig hen y co', hob y deri dan y to!"

As they came up on the location, Edward ordered the sails be furled and anchor to be dropped, eyeing the waters before them with curiosity and trepidation. They were churning angrily, very different from the tranquil sea all around them. He let his first mate take the helm and crossed over to the gunwale to gaze down into the waves below. There was no cause for the disturbance that he could see. Behind him, the crew readied the diving bell, and Edward shook his head with a mental sigh as he entered his cabin to strip out of outer clothing, which he knew would weigh him down in the water.

"Buom unwaith yn garaidon! Hob y deri dando," he sang as he shrugged out of his pistol harness, laying it out on the cot against the starboard wall. "Ti a geisiasist dorri 'nghalon! Dyna ganu eto…"

Next to go were his outer robes, carefully folded and placed beside the bandolier, followed shortly by his heavy boots. Comfortable as they were, they would only prove to be cumbersome in the water. Oh, he could swim with everything on just fine, but the weather was calm, there were no other ships to be seen for miles around, and aside from the odd shark or so, Edward had little to fear in the warm, calm waters of the Caribbean. Still, it would not do to go out unarmed. He stuck a knife in his belt, as well as a cutlass, and strapped his Hidden Blade onto his arm.

"Am funudyn pwy fu'n," he sang as he dropped his boots beside the foot of the cot. "Hidio druan am dy dro?"

With that, he turned and made his way back onto the deck, where the crew was hoisting the diving bell out over the Jackdaw's side using the ship's cargo lift.

"Deri dando, wyt ti'n gwarando! Hen gân co'?" he finished, coming over to the small group by the gunwale."Canig hen y co'! Hob y deri dan y to!"

"Ready, Captain!" one of the deckhands exclaimed with a grin. Edward gave him a small smile, glancing down into the dark depths beneath them.

"Good," he replied, his Welsh accent noticeably audible through the British inflections. "All right, then, drop her and we'll get this done!"

"Aye, Captain!" The diving bell jerked slightly. "Bell away!"

It plunged past the deck level and crashed into the water below, spraying water as high as Edward's head before it all splashed down again. Grinning with anticipation, he stepped up onto the gunwale, drew a deep breath, raised his arms over his head, and pushed off with his toes, arching his back into a perfect swan dive as he sliced into the cool water below.

Everything took on a surreal feeling as he opened his eyes, the world around him blurring into a haze of blue-green and shimmering white, broken only by the chain of the sinking diving bell as it plunged into the darker water below him. Edward reached out and grabbed onto the chain, letting it pull him down, down, down into the depths, bubbles trailing after him as he descended quickly. It felt as though his lungs were being constricted the deeper he went. The feeling was discomfiting, but it was one that Edward was more or less used to, by now, so he managed to ignore it.

He had just sighted the first sign of the wreck beneath when his blurry gaze caught sight of a twinkle of gold a little ways below him. Edward let go of the chain, and paused, trying to make out what he was seeing.

The gold was attached to a dark shape, floating there in the water. The shape itself was vaguely humanoid; he could make out hints of white and red and blue, in addition to what he realized was the glint of metal around the middle. A darker substance was floating in the water around it. Blood, most likely.

Edward swam closer.

It was, indeed, a man, though in the murk of the water, Edward could not make out his face, or his race or profession. Plunging his hands through the cloud of red toward the man, he found that it was, indeed, blood: the liquid was still warm, and when he touched the man's abdomen near where the glint of gold was, more blood gushed out to diffuse through the water around them.

The man's hand twitched slightly at the motion.

Cach, Edward thought. He would be alive.

And even though Edward was a pirate, he could not bring himself to leave this injured man to drown. Having nearly drowned several times himself, Edward knew what a horrible fate it was. He would not wish it on anybody but his enemies, and as of right now, the man was no enemy of Edward's. Still, it was quite a ways to the surface, again, and he still had some treasure hunting to do… That glint of gold caught his eye again, flashing eerily brightly through the gloom.

Edward swore again in his mind, grabbed the man under the arms, and swam for the surface.

They were only about fifteen or twenty feet down, but the distance was still such that he had to stop briefly to let his lungs expand and let his body acclimate to the pressure change. He had no desire to get the bends, and despite being as reckless as he was, he was not stupid. The man was dead weight in Edward's arms; every stroke was a struggle to pull him upwards, though their progress was expedited when Edward grabbed onto the chain of the diving bell to help himself along. He exhaled the entire way up.

Within two minutes, they broke the surface, Edward gasping, and the man unresponsive in his arms.

"Man overboard!" he shouted up. "Someone throw me a rope, he's still alive!"

The alarmed faces of several of his crewmembers appeared at the gunwale, and one of them tossed down a rope to him. Edward tied the end around the man's chest beneath his armpits, and took hold of it himself.

"Pull us up!"

The crew did as they were told, hoisting Edward and his passenger into the air with a speed and efficiency that had only been achieved through long months and years of seafaring. Edward had only seconds to position himself between the man's back and the gunwale. Then there were hands on them, pulling them onto the Jackdaw's top deck.

"Careful, he's injured," he warned as he steadied himself on the well-sanded wood. He turned to one of the rats. "Get the surgeon."

The boy nodded and scurried off. Edward turned to observe as his crewmembers laid the unconscious man on his back on the deck.

The stranger had black hair, and his skin was deeply tanned. Edward could not tell if the color was natural or not; judging by the man's foul-weather greatcoat, worn over a strikingly familiar set of robes, the other was probably a sailor, himself. For all Edward knew, the stranger was as pale as he was, under the clothing.

"Blimey, he weighs a ton!" exclaimed one of the crewmembers who had hauled the stranger aboard.

Edward could see why. Beneath the layers of clothing, the man was a mountain of pure muscle. He had felt it while he was pulling him to the surface, but had not noticed it. As he took in the sight of the white and blue clothing clinging to the other's chiseled torso, he took note of the red sash around his waist, the familiar emblem there, and the golden hilt of a strange dagger sticking out of the other man's upper abdomen.

It was then that Edward realized that the man was not breathing.

"Cach!" he grumbled. He stepped forward and knelt beside the man's head. "All right, let's see if we can't get you breathing."

Edward had learned an artificial breathing technique from a Chinese monk he had met, once. He had no idea if it would work on a drowning victim, but he figured it was worth a try. Turning the man onto his less-injured side, Edward stiffened the first two fingers of his right hand into a stabbing point, and drove them into several specific pressure points along the man's back and ribs, and then pushed, hard, against his chest.

With a great gasp, the man choked, and began coughing violently, seawater and blood spewing across the deck with every heave. The man's left arm, the one that he was not lying on, moved sluggishly forward to brace him against the deck as he vomited up what seemed like gallons of water.

Edward sat back slightly, feeling both wary and self-accomplished. For his first time resuscitating someone, he thought he had not done a half-bad job of it. A small smirk curled his thin lips.

Meanwhile, the man finally seemed to have finished coughing. He groaned and slumped bonelessly against the decking before he finally rolled onto his back, squinting against the sunlight.

"M-Mister Faulkner?" His voice was rough, hoarse and weak from the abuse he had put his throat through. Edward noted that he had a strange accent. In all his travels, he had never heard an accent like that one.

Edward leaned over the man, opening his mouth to reply. A pair of tawny eyes darted over to his face. They widened abruptly; there was a snickt! sound and a flash of silver. Edward registered the sound just in time to dodge backwards, avoiding the slash that would otherwise have slit his throat from ear to ear.

In a flash, both he and his sudden, strange adversary were on their feet. The crew hastily backed away. The pair circled around each other; the dark stranger crouched, wolf-like, on the boards, lips curled to bare white teeth in a feral snarl, a dagger in his left hand while his right curled around his wounded stomach. Edward eyed the other suspiciously, his own dagger in his right hand, his Hidden Blade ejected at his left wrist. He could not recall consciously arming himself, but it did not matter.

"Who are you?" the man demanded, gravelly voice a dark snarl. "Where have you taken me?"

Edward gave a snort.

"We haven't taken you anywhere, boy," he groused, stepping carefully over the slick patches on the deck, the sanded boards smooth beneath the soles of his bare feet. He watched as his opponent stumbled and gasped before righting himself. "And you owe me your life, so I'd use some manners, were I you."

The other man grimaced and grunted, curling in on his abdomen slightly, staggering to his next step.

"Come on, you can barely stand," Edward groused, admittedly curious as to who this man was that he could stand and fight with a dagger buried in his guts. "I wouldn't have saved you just to kill you and take whatever goods you've got on you. Give it up and let our surgeon tend you."

The other man grunted again, squinting at the crewmen gathered around him. Edward could see his dark eyes darting around, quickly calculating. It was then that he realized something: This man was just like him. A fighter, a predator, a madman.

An Assassin.

"We work in the darkness, to serve the light," Edward stated, just loud enough for the stranger to hear. The other man froze, tensing impossibly as his hazy gaze darted over to Edward. The Welshman could see the other's pulse fluttering at his throat; he was beginning to sway where he stood. His white clothing was slowly soaking through with red. The stranger would not last long.

"W-Who…" He paused, choking, and hacked a mouthful of blood onto the Jackdaw's deck. "W-Who are you?"

"Captain Edward Kenway," Edward replied, feeling a small, smug surge of pride at the title, which had not faded during the two years he had been a pirate. "And yourself?"

The man stared at him for a long moment, breathing growing more labored by the second. Edward was the first to see it: the man's brown eyes fluttered, his tanned face going pale. He sheathed his weapons and darted forward just in time to catch the stranger as his knees gave out. The stranger slumped against him, breathing heavy and labored. Warmth spread to the front of Edward's wet clothing. He knew that it was the stranger's blood. As he lowered them to the deck, he absently wondered how much blood the other man had lost; glancing around, he realized that the deck was all but covered in it.

Good thing the stranger was so big, then, or else he'd have been dead ages ago.

The man gasped something as Edward lowered them to the deck, brown eyes fluttering, breath rasping, now. As Edward laid the other man down on his side, the other's fingers grasped at the sleeve of Edward's shirt.

"What?" Edward asked, frowning in confusion. The man groaned, eyelids fluttering as his gaze darted around.

"Oh niiawenhátie…?" He gasped a couple more times, shuddering, and coughed another mouthful of blood."Ista? Raké:ni? Oh niiawenhátie…? Í:se… Í:'i… Í:'i…"

Edward stared at the stranger, wondering at the strange language he was babbling in. It was not any of the European languages, that much Edward knew, and he did not recognize it from his time in the Caribbean. Lips thinning with his tension, he grabbed the darker man by the chin and tilted his head up so that he could meet his tawny gaze with his own ocean-blue one.

"What. Is. Your. Name?" Edward ground out, frowning sternly at him. The man coughed again, closing his eyes and grimacing, but when he opened his eyes again, he was a little bit more lucid.

"Ratohnhaké:ton," he murmured. Then his eyes rolled back up into his head, and he went limp in Edward's grasp. Edward swore, and glanced around for the first time since he had sent for the surgeon. The entire exchange between him and the stranger could not have taken more than five minutes from violent start to eerie finish, so where the hell was the surgeon?

"Where the hell is Gibbs?" he demanded. Just then, the deckhand he had sent for the surgeon came rushing back up on deck.

"Gibbs says to bring him down," the boy gasped out. "I told him the man had been stabbed in the stomach, and he told me to just bring him down below."

Edward sighed.

"Right," he muttered, and then looked up. "Andrews, you get his legs. I'll take his arms. Let's get this done!"

The deckhand he had asked for came forward immediately, and together, they hoisted the unconscious man up, staggering slightly under his weight. Edward grunted. It felt like the man must have weighed almost two-hundred pounds, and for a moment, he wondered how it was he had managed to get him to the ship at all. Then he pushed the thought away, and he and Andrews carefully carried the unconscious man down belowdecks to the surgeon's quarters.

Gibbs was waiting for them, his hands freshly washed and his tools laid out. When they brought the stranger in, the surgeon looked up at them, and his expression shifted to one of slight dismay.

"Any idea 'ow long 'e's been like this?" he asked, to which Edward shook his head. His face was red, breath short, and he grunted as he and Andrews hoisted the stranger onto the operating table and finally relieved themselves of the burden he posed. Edward let out a relieved sigh and shook his wet hair out of his eyes.

"No idea," he answered, the Welsh accent lilting in comparison to the clipped British. He turned to Andrews. "Thanks for the help. Now get back to the deck. I want her cleaned and sanded by the time I get back up there."

"Aye, Captain." Andrews nodded, and returned to the deck while Edward turned to where Gibbs was bent over the stranger, examining the hilt of the dagger buried in his upper abdomen.

"What do you say?" Edward asked casually. "Is it worth trying to save him?"

Gibbs shrugged. "There's an 'igh probability of infection with a wound such as this, an' 'e'll probably get pneumonia from the seawater in 'is lungs. I'd say it don't look good."

"But there's a chance that he'll survive?"

"A slim one." Gibbs leaned back and gestured to the hilt of the dagger. "'S a miracle 'e 'asn't bled out, yet, it is."

Edward sighed. "Well, fix him up as best you can. I have questions for him, and I don't want him dying before they're answered."

"Aye, Captain," Gibbs replied, and turned to fetch a bottle of rum, some catgut, and a needle. "I'll need ya to strip 'im outta 'is shirt, an' 'old him down, if ya please."

Edward sighed, and set about peeling the coat and robes from the stranger. It was only then that he got a good look at the clothing, and realized that it was cut in a very strange fashion. Edward frowned. Nobody wore a coat or robes like these, not even others of the Brotherhood. Who was this man, who had decided to go for a swim in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with a dagger in his belly, while dressed in strange clothes and armed with… Edward did a double-take. Was that a hatchet, of some kind? And what the hell was with those pistols?

"Captain?"

He would have to investigate later. For now, he laid aside the man's effects and started tugging at the sash around the man's waist. It came off with some difficulty, and then came the buttons of the strange shirt. Only once the bloodied fabric had been pulled away from the dark-skinned man did Edward realize that the tan hue of his flesh seemed to be his natural skin tone. The man was all muscle; much of his chiseled, rock-hard chest and arms were cris-crossed and pocked with stark, pale scars, but underneath all the scarring was the tan hue that characterized his face and hands.

Maybe he was a Mulatto, then?

Still, the abdominal wound had been exposed, and Gibbs needed Edward to hold the stranger down even though the surgeon had tied down the man's legs. Obeying, Edward braced his hands on the man's shoulders and bore down with all of his not inconsiderable weight. There was a murmur from Gibbs. A second later, Edward heard the dagger slide free with a sickening, sucking sound, and the stranger jerked awake with a harsh groan, the muscles in his jaw jumping and tendons in his neck standing out starkly as he forcefully swallowed any and all cries of pain. Edward braced him a little more firmly as the man writhed, instinctively trying to move away from the source of the pain.

Finally, he subsided with a choked-off grunt and lay there, panting. There was a sloshing sound; again, as soon as the pain began, the stranger clenched his eyes shut, grimacing, teeth gritted. Thankfully, it seemed to only take a moment until Gibbs finished disinfecting the wound. However, then came the stitching. Edward was forced to all but lay across the man's chest in an effort to hold him down while the surgeon tried the wound and then sutured it shut, surmising that there was no damage to the man's innards that would not heal on its own.

When it was all finished, Edward eased off a bit.

In thanks, he got a fist to his jaw. It sent him sprawling, since he had not expected it. By the time he got back up, the stranger was struggling into a sitting position despite Gibbs's protestations, ignoring the hands pushing against his shoulders.

Edward had had enough.

He got his feet under him, stood up, and socked the stranger across the jaw. The man gasped and reeled back, hands flailing for purchase as he threatened to tip over the edge of the table. Edward wasted no time in grabbing the man by his ponytail and jerking him upright again, tilting the man's head back so that their gazes met, the tawny one slightly glazed and the ocean-blue one glinting dangerously.

"Listen to me, pen bach," he snarled. "There'll be no more of that, not if you want to keep your nose and ears." The stranger stared at him hazily, defiance etched into every line of his features. "I mean it. I'm not afraid to lop off something you might miss later, so don't tempt me."

The other man stared him down a second longer. Then the fight went out of him as his instinct to struggle waned, and he slumped bonelessly against the table again, eyelids drooping to half-mast. Gibbs swore quietly.

"Captain, I need 'im 'eld up so's I can bandage 'im," Gibbs told Edward. Edward complied wordlessly, pulling the man none-too-gently into a sitting position. He grunted in response, but otherwise seemed unable to muster a protest, head lolling limply against his chest. Edward simply held him up as Gibbs bound the stranger's belly with a bandage, tying it off tightly. After that, they worked together to move the larger man over to the cot against the wall. He seemed to try to help as best he could, but it was only half-successful, as his strength was apparently waning. By the time they laid him carefully upon the cot, the man was out again, sweat beading upon his skin and pain etched into his face even in unconsciousness.

Edward shook his head and turned to Gibbs.

"Come get me when he's awake and lucid," Edward instructed. He glanced at the surgeon's desk, where the bloodstained dagger was sitting innocently. On an impulse, he reached out and palmed it. "I'll be diving for the next few hours, and then we'll set sail again."

"Aye, Captain," Gibbs replied, and Edward glanced at the unconscious man on the cot once more before he left the cabin, heading for the deck again.

The crew was in the process of hauling the diving bell back up when Edward reemerged into the Caribbean sunlight. He raised an incredulous eyebrow and stood there for a second, watching them, before he shook his head.

"What're you doing?" he called, resisting the urge to laugh at the startled looks on the group's faces. "I haven't yet begun to dive! Lower it again!"

The crew exchanged dumbfounded looks. Then they let the bell sink again. Edward snickered to himself as he shoved the dagger through his belt and dove over the side of the Jackdaw again, slicing through the deep blue waters to complete his original mission.

Sometimes, it was just too much fun to tease his crew.

Compulsory and Standard Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's Creed in any of its forms, save for the copies I have of each game but Liberation. Assassin's Creed belongs in its entirety to Ubisoft.

Lyrics are from "Hob-y-Deri-Dando," which is a traditional Welsh song.

Welsh Translations:
Cach - literally "shit," but is substituted for any swear under the sun.
Pen Bach - "stupid idiot."

Mohawk Translations:
Oh niiawenhátie…? - "What's happening...?"
Ista - Mother
Raké:ni - Father
Í:se - You
Í:'i - I

Brought this over from my Tumblr (RevenantAvenger90) and DeviantART (ElvenWhiteMage) accounts.

Please tell me what all you thought!

-Scribe