Summary:
"A day comes
when the mouth grows tired
of saying "I."
Yet it is occupied
still by a self which must speak.
Which still desires, is curious.
Which believes it has also a right.
What to do?
The tongue consults with the teeth
it knows will survive
both mouth and self,
which grin—it is their natural pose—
and say nothing."
-A Day Comes by Jane Hirshfield
The best-laid plans of Foxes and Eagles...
MEMORY 6: WHAT GOES AROUND, PT 2
"Ehi, Volpe."
Volpe did not allow himself to react.
Carefully, he put aside his quill and ink, as though he'd been expecting Giovanni to show up all along and had merely been writing to pass the time.
As he turned fully to face the other man, Volpe allowed his hand to slide along the desk, brushing a loose scrap of paper to cover the translated codex page and its false duplicate he'd been working on only moments before.
Giovanni's voice was soft, worn by stress and lack of sleep. He offered Volpe a small smile, perched in the window of Volpe's old and …tastefully cluttered room in the Thieves guild-hall like a sullen old eagle at roost.
"We missed you." he says, pointedly.
There was a meeting, Giovanni does not elaborate.
Ah.
As he surveyed the other's weary state, Volpe's heart twinged, and he spared a moment of pity for the little dove from Monteriggioni.
Giovanni was clearly not cut out for this kind of life—but Illario, damn him, had bullheadedly pushed his sons into these niches—regardless of where they themselves might have wished to better fit.
"Of course," he replied, the intended faux-acerbic tone of his reply softened by his prior thoughts.
Why would you have expected me to attend?
This, too, needed no voicing.
He mock-scowled, and motioned for the other to come in.
"Now get out of my window, uccellino." No point in trying to keep the youngest of their generation out. The damn fool would just become more curious. "Come in, you're blocking the light."
And this remained true no matter which generation one spoke of; a curious Auditore was a dangerous Auditore.
Best to keep them occupied.
"...times as these, eh, Giovanni? Giovanni?"
Giovanni looked up. "Ah, my apologies, fratello—what were you saying?"
"I said 'It is the mark of strange times such as these that we live in.' I was speaking of our Brothers in Roma—"
…What? Giovanni blinked and struggled to recall what Volpe was talking about. He'd had no word of any trouble from what few contacts they had who remained in Roma—
"They have been very quiet after that last outburst, no? Very strange. But no matter."
Volpe was idly toying with a throwing knife he'd pulled from… somewhere—the only tic he'd ever seen the Fox display, a solitary crack in an otherwise impervious brick wall of purposeful obscurity. …Or perhaps not. Whatever this might indicate about his Brother's mood was thoroughly lost on Giovanni.
"Your mind is far away today, fratello mio. Was Bernardo's latest bookkeeping report truly that worrisome?" he joked, and then after a moment, the Fox's face sobered and he nudged Giovanni's leg with one booted foot. "'Vanni—What troubles you, amico?"
"...You were speaking of the strangeness of our times, Volpe. I would have to agree. There are so many strange things going on in our city as of late, my friend, I hardly know which to turn to first. First the trouble with the Pazzi, and now this 'L'Aquila' making a menace of themselves, and not to mention the rumors from my contacts in Venezia," Giovanni grimaced before continuing.
"And they aren't the only ones, either, Volpe. The Ottoman Brotherhood has contacted me as well—a letter arrived from Constantinopli earlier this week."
"Ishak Pasha has contacted me. He's concerned about the movements of the Templars in his area."
"Enough to contact us?" Volpe queried, in a skeptical tone that said quite plainly he didn't see how Templars in Constantinople were any of their business.
"Enough to plan a mission to Wallachia," Giovanni told him.
Volpe raised an eyebrow in mild alarm. "He seriously plans to go after Vladimir Tepes, then? How soon?"
"So it would seem, yes. As for how soon? Hard to say. Not likely any time this year, but perhaps the next, or even later than that—they had a… setback that required fixing."
"A setback?"
"A traitor," Giovanni confirmed, grimly. "Ishak received intel from an informant: the Brother they'd hoped to have jointly spearhead the mission—a local of Wallachia—had turned his back on the Creed. This is, as far as our brothers know, the entire extent of the letter."
Giovanni fell silent for a long moment.
As he'd perched in the window, Volpe had shown blue in his other sense… but…
[A flash of white-gold hidden-knowledge-preservation-of-the-self-important, shimmering like sunlight reflecting off the surface of the Arno across the parchment beneath Volpe's hand—tinged with a pale rose-colored hue that spoke to a promise of danger and intrigue...]
Volpe had been there for as long as Giovanni could remember. If he couldn't trust his oldest friend, then who?
[Discomforted, he did his best to quash the sly little voice in the back of his mind that persistently reminded him he didn't even know the man's true name.]
"I… I was not sure who to turn to first but I… I cannot handle this alone." he admitted.
"That business with the Wallachian traitor was not the only thing he wished to inform us of— the Pasha also claimed that this source specifically wished to warn us as well—to keep watchful eyes on our 'friends.'"
"He suspects a traitor within our Brotherhood?"
"Worse." Giovanni said, grimly. "Within Firenze."
"Here?" Volpe recoiled in immediate alarm. "Giovanni, I respect Mentor Ishak as much as any other member of our Brotherhood but…They are in Constantinpoli, so far from us—this source of his; can we trust them? How good is their information?"
More importantly, loomed the unspoken question, where did they get it from?
Giovanni sighed, dragging a hand through his hair.
"I…. I don't know, Volpe," he admitted, slumping forward. "The information regarding the former Brother in Wallachia—it was," his voice cracked slightly with grief, and he trailed off. Losing a Brother was always hard, even to something as mundane as death. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose one to the enemy.
He shuddered at the thought that that might very well soon change, if the Pasha's warning was to be believed.
"It was true. They found evidence in a raid on his home."
Volpe hummed skeptically. "Evidence can be planted, Giovanni, you know that as well as I," he admonished. "We've done so ourselves many times."
"Letters in his own hand to the Grand Master of the Rite?"
"Those can be faked as well, Giovanni."
"Damn you, Volpe—are you so determined to play the Devil's advocate here that you-"
"Peace, fratello. I merely wish to caution you here. If… if what this informant says is true, then…" he paused. "This is a very serious matter indeed, not something to be treated lightly. We'll need to tread very carefully," Volpe said, soothingly. "I only want to know that we can trust this information—before we act upon it."
"You.. you're right, of course," Giovanni nodded, and then ducked his head, hunching over miserably on his seat. "I… I'm afraid we can trust their informant's word—however much I wish it were not so. The letters were corroborated by the Brother's own words when they confronted him."
Volpe opened his mouth, and Giovanni cut him off with one hand, a tired expression on his face.
"Volpe… please. There was no torture involved. The confession was voluntary and unprovoked. The investigation was quite thorough, from what Ishak inferred. You've met Mentor Ishak before, you know what he's like. Not a man given to indulging in... flights of fancy, that one. His words conferred no joy in the task."
Volpe made a weary face, reluctantly conceding the point with the wave of a hand. "...I don't suppose this 'trusted source' of Ishak's did us the favor of naming any names, did they?"
"No. Only that we must be vigilant, and…" Giovanni paused, disquieted. "...be prepared to look close to home."
Volpe was silent for a heartbeat, and then;
"Ominous," He offered. Volpe glanced sidelong at him. "I ill like that phrasing."
Giovanni let out a bitter laugh. "...You're not alone in that, fratello."
They lapsed into silence again.
Giovanni's eyes strayed to the desk and its haphazard pile of papers. He wondered—if he used his eagle's eyes, would he still see that sunlight-shimmer soaked parchment amid the chaos?
"Giovanni?" the Fox queried, breaking the oppressive silence.
Giovanni turned to face him. Volpe was staring at him with a strange, intent look on his face, his voice was raw with some unidentifiable emotion when he spoke again. "I am... quite serious, fratello—I should hope it does not need saying but… just...be careful, yes?"
Giovanni snorted at him. "Tch, please. When am I not careful, fratello?"
"Always, fratellino." Volpe muttered dryly in reply, shaking his head.
Giovanni blinked, too thrown by the nickname to be insulted. Huh. Volpe had never called him that before.
He spared a moment's wistful thought to wonder how Mario was faring.
Volpe's teasing expression sobered once again as he stood from his chair. Giovanni followed suit—he had precious little else to tell the Fox. As his Brother passed him, heading for the window, Volpe stopped him with a hand to his shoulder.
"Uccellino. Giovanni. Look at me." he said, shaking him slightly for emphasis.
"I am serious—I encourage you to start investigating, of course, but don't do anything drastic. This information is too vague and nebulous. We'll need something more damning before we move forward, if you should find anything."
Wordlessly, Giovanni nodded in agreement.
La Volpe sighed tiredly, and released him with a pat to the shoulder. "We are already so few."
Watching Giovanni vault out his open window and trot across the rooftops towards his home and family, Volpe hummed worriedly, thoughts straying to cunning tales of Eagles and Foxes and the looming threat of a raging, bloodied Bull.
He tapped the fingers of one hand absently against the broken and deciphered codex page—trapped underneath several blank sheets of parchment—with a troubled frown, deep in thought.
Well, this made things infinitely more complicated.
MEMORY 7: ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE, PT 2
As they had planned the prior week, Giovanni and his eldest son set out the following morning into the pre-dawn gloom, intent on laying a trap for their mysterious copycat.
As it turned out, they needn't have bothered.
Much to his dismay and slowly mounting terror, Giovanni quickly found that their first encounter near the market had not proved to be the last of Giovanni's frustrating dealings with the cocky black-hooded Eagle of Florence—first, his coin-purse had somehow found its way into Petruccio's hands earlier that week, coinage intact for all but a petty sum and a familiar downy white feather.
An event which rattled him to his core, as oddly benign as it might have first seemed—for in order to have returned the purse in the first place, this cocksure would-be master thief would have needed to approach unseen and leave unnoticed.
That their quarry had returned the purse at all was queer.
That they had chosen to do so by handing it to his youngest son in broad daylight, in front of his own palazzo with himself none the wiser was…
So, in light of these events, no—Giovanni found that he was not surprised to find the thrill-seeking cutpurse at the heart of their pigeon feed problem as well.
Nor was he surprised that a repeat encounter led to much the same result as the first, with the black hooded phantom evading them at every turn before disappearing back into the twilight they'd come from.
What had surprised him, however, was L'Aquila's behavior—and he still wasn't sure what to make of it.
Not the ...generous way in which they lingered, keeping pace with them, no, that Giovanni had expected the second he'd laid eyes on the lone figure, standing atop the Santa Trinita roof like they belonged there—which, in and of itself, had been strange.
The whole chase had been rather showy.
Generally speaking, the object of a truly successful thief was to not be known for their crimes, but this one seemed determined to be seen at every opportunity.
L'Aquila had waited, patiently—almost politely—for them.
Motionless amid the first moments of pre-dawn light, they waited not only for both Assassins to traverse the rooftop approach to the church, but the impetuous thief remained standing atop the church gable for nearly a full minute while they gained their footing.
It was not until Federico foolhardily lunged into action that their adversary did the same, leaping through the air to land gracefully in a roll amid the hay scattered on the rooftop below.
Giovanni had stared helplessly after them for a moment, and then launched into action after his son, all the while cursing whatever force had seen fit to gift him with bullheaded children with something to prove.
The thief went out of their way to home in on the various piles of petals and hay atop the rooftops, leaping over, through and under the various cushions and fail-safes the guild had set up.
So their 'eagle' somehow knew what these meant, too. Was nothing sacred anymore? How much more of their tradition had this impudent footpad bastardized? And where had he learned of the-
Giovanni set that troubling line of thought aside for later.
L'Aquila almost seemed to take a spiteful, petty joy out of flaunting their apparent knowledge of their secrets, kicking up as much debris as he could wherever he passed, leaving clouds of dust and petals drifting in his wake, a fact which only seemed to incense Federico more.
Giovanni would be lying if he said it wasn't adding to his slowly mounting temper as well. The bastard was slippery as a fish fresh from the market—and he obviously knew it.
Several times he or Federico came close to catching their elusive quarry, but every time, there was always a beam in just the right place, or a sign, or a garden trellis, or, in one particularly daring and somewhat baffling instance, a hanging pot full of flowers and a lantern to aid the other in their escape.
"Duccio!" Vieri hissed furiously.
The younger boy ignored him, slinking across the flat rooftop with a surprising amount of grace for a twelve year old, gaze half-fixed on their hastily abandoned bags of grain, now being swarmed by pigeons. Occasionally he would pause, glancing warily at the roofline of the district, watching for any sign of their mentor or his pursuers.
"Duccio!" Vieri tried again, slightly louder. Somewhere closer to the Santa Trinita, a flock startled into flight. Vieri swiveled in a half-crouch to stare in their direction with no small amount of trepidation.
His dove-gray robes offered him some small measure of camouflage against the stone and bricks in the rapidly lightening pre-dawn twilight, true—but it would not last for long; already the sun was just peeking over the distant horizon.
"Duccio, that's a bad idea. They could pass by at any moment. Ezio said—"
"Shut up and be still," the younger boy muttered, nodding his head towards the birds milling stupidly about the bags. "you'll scare them—we need to move these or they might be seen."
"...Have you considered that if we sit here for much longer, WE might be seen, de' Luca?" he scoffed. "We need to get off the rooftops, idiota. Now."
As though to illustrate his point, another flock took to the sky in a great wheeling clamor. Closer.
Duccio stood and turned to look on reflex—putting his full silhouette against the predawn light, the idiot—and Vieri resisted the urge to swear. Barely.
Were they getting closer?
There was a distant shout, and then the rapidly approaching click-clack of boots on tiles.
They were definitely getting closer.
Yes, he was sure of it. Feet on tiles somewhere just a rooftop away were rapidly closing in.
Duccio froze, his hand hovering uncertainly over the strap of one bag—and then Vieri made up his mind for them both, darting forward, lunging to make a wild grab for both of the bags.
The pigeons exploded into motion, but he paid them no mind.
Either they were seen, or not.
If they could do as Ezio said, and escape…
He barreled straight onwards into Duccio, letting his momentum carry both himself and the little fool over the edge in an ungraceful fall to land in the haypile just below, swearing furiously under his breath all the while.
With a noise of quiet confusion, Federico brought his father's attention to the sudden burst of motion and noise atop a nearby adjacent rooftop.
Giovanni eyed the roof in question warily.
Their quarry had not gone in that direction—he'd broken into a loping stride across the rooftop before them before diving into a haypile situated just below, in full view of their pursuers.
Federico shot him a questioning glance, wordlessly asking if his father wanted him to investigate.
The tiles on the roof before them clattered noisily. Giovanni shook his head, dismissing the noise as not worth their effort.
A thrown rock or bit of loose tile as a distraction—or even the rare and adventurous guard boldly venturing into their domain to investigate was just as likely. Hell, it was not unknown for the flocks to at times startle themselves into flight simply by way of sheer stupidity.
As they drew close to the hay pile, they were rewarded for their persistence, as their prey made a sudden, jarring reappearance, flying from the haypile and darting to the lip of the roof and down a row of trellises, clearly expecting that they would follow.
Seeing no other choice, and now dead-set on catching the bastard, they followed suit.
Giovanni resisted the urge to give voice to his frustrated displeasure when they rounded the corner and came near face-to-face with the black-clothed figure of the bothersome thief, brazenly perched on the lip of a deliberately parked wagon overloaded with hay.
Again, L'Aquila lingered, letting them come close enough for the still fluttering hay to set Giovanni's eyes to watering, before springing from their hiding place and bouncing up the white-sheet path, across the trellis, over a banner-festooned archway, and straight up the wall onto the roof of a house.
…His house.
A blatant show of cocky arrogance; the coin purse had been handed directly to Petruccio—the thief knew who his family were; knew where they lived. Could approach within inches unseen and disappear unhindered.
A reminder.
A veiled threat against the lives of those he loved—
Giovanni saw red.
Federico, having split off from their chase, now appeared atop the roof of the far adjoining building, effectively cutting off all avenues of escape.
The thief, ironically, seemed just as stunned by the boldness of their move as their pursuers—instead of making good on their escape, they'd slowed to a near stop.
Even as Federico approached they remained there, hesitating on the corner of the Palazzo Auditore roof before abruptly attempting to retreat the way they'd come—only to be met with the far more terrifying sight of an enraged Master Assassin practically on their coat-tails.
Aura now blooming rust-red with fear-of-target-looked-for, the little Eagle was forced to reconsider their options—uselessly, they turned and darted frantically to the left along the rooftop towards the street, veering dangerously close to the courtyard-facing edge of the roof as they did so—
In vain, as Giovanni's grasping hands at last caught a firm grip on the other's trailing shoulder-cloak and tugged, forcing them to spin back around. Swiftly, he caught them by the collar with his free hand before they could escape.
Their quarry caught, Federico slowed to a stop at the far edge of the roof, wavering.
Gloved hands struggled briefly at the hold he had on them, but stilled just as quickly as he brought his other hand to hover near the other's neck and allowed the Hidden Blade to engage with a quiet and meaningful snicket.
Their breathing turned shallow and quick, and they leaned back imperceptibly. Giovanni snarled at the thief, and adjusted his hold on their collar to compensate for the shift in weight before they could turn it into an advantage. Not so easy this time.
He turned his attention to their face, and found that much of it was concealed by the half-mask they wore. A striped scarf covered their neck, their hood the rest—and then he watched with a sinking feeling as shadowed eyes bloomed bright-Eagle-gold before he even had so much as a chance to discern their true color.
…Not just an Eagle in title and preferred habitat, then.
For a moment, they stood motionless, Giovanni's blade hovering uncertainly near the other's throat, and the eagle-eyed thief scarcely daring to breathe.
The gift…
It was so rare.
…What he could see of the thief's face told him that they were much younger than he'd initially assumed.
He blinked his own eagle's eyes into place—-and then immediately wished he hadn't, assaulted by a barrage of information; abstract concepts and sensations knit together in a web of nebulous associations he had only ever been able to just partially understand.
Now made further unintelligible by the sheer overwhelming amount and speed, much of what he could grasp was near useless, and little more than mere fragments bereft of context.
—potential-promise-possibility blue—
Mingling like blood in water, fear-for-life-red was easy to grasp, a familiar concept, swiftly understood once felt—one seen many times on the faces of his targets, often accompanied by willingness-to-harm-terror-red, unsurprising —- here though they bled abruptly into the rust-hued tones of potential-threat-to-kin-target-looked-for gold—
—seeker-of-safety-preservation-of-the-self white—
At-all-costs red, bitter on his tongue like a mouthful of ash.
Un-true. The red corrected into the shade of a negated truth—unwahæ, a concept whose name he knew as both more and less than instinct, an orphaned fragment torn from the mother-tongue of his mind's eye.
—Looked-for-personal-wanted gold of-secret-hidden-knowledge-information-useful-safety white—
Of-grief-and-longing blue purpled like a mottled bruise into the ugly reds of resentment-and-rage-unresolved—then paled, offer-of-safety white dimming into non-threat gray in a way that left him more than a little disoriented. Pain bloomed along his temples with a stinging heat.
—important-loved-protected blue of-unwillingness-to-harm blue of-ally-friend-blood-ki—
He ducked his head with a sharp hiss, blinking away his gift with tearing eyes. Stunned by the overwhelming and near-unintelligible nature of their aura, he was only halfway aware of Federico's voice, words blending senselessly into a low buzz of concern.
Color had leeched back into his sight, but afterimages that refused to fade danced in front of his eyes, echoes of the other's aura overlapping with the waking world in a way that left him struggling to focus.
Through the sting of tears and the lancing pain of his newly acquired headache, Giovanni became aware of a hand at his wrist, a slight-but-deliberate pressure on the trigger mechanism—another thing no common thief should know—and the blade at the would-be Eagle's throat forcibly disengaged.
Suddenly conscious of the fabric of the other's collar slipping out of his hand as the thief attempted to twist slyly out of his grasp, Giovanni lunged blindly to regain his purchase. One hand caught onto fabric and held fast—only for his quarry to duck under his arms and slide away unhindered, leaving him clutching the thief's scarf in one fist.
Swearing violently and rubbing at his still stinging eyes, Giovanni surged forward, intent on closing the distance and catching the pompous little bird.
L'Aquila danced out of the way, flinging a small round object into the air between them. Giovanni had only a moment to register the vague impression of a lit fuse, the familiar musical clash of a terracotta shell shattering against the rooftops, and then Federico, yelling in alarm—before a billowing cloud obscured his vision.
A smoke bomb, he realized with dismay, even as the shards of the bombshell crunched under his feet—
And his footing slid—
For the second time since his first "meeting" with the thief, Giovanni found himself stumbling half-blind into empty air. Through the lingering smoke, he caught a momentary glimpse of what he would later deem quite possibly the most unpleasant view of the tiled floor of his own courtyard—
—He had the vaguest notion that he should be embarrassed by this.
Perhaps he would be, later.
If there was a later.
The thought was tinged with no small amount of hysteria.
Followed shortly by the absurd consideration that Maria's roses truly looked lovely—surely, she'd outdone herself this time—
[This time?]
And then just as quickly, he was yanked back from the rooftop's edge.
Gloved hands steadied him, and he muttered a hasty thanks to his eldest, swiping ineffectually at his eyes. The voice that responded, however, was strange—and decidedly not Federico's.
It was familiar in a way he couldn't place, a low blur of foreign words tinged with laughter, fragments of Turkish and Arabic and Florentine-and-Roman accented Italian, cobbled together in a strange, staggering sentence that was both apology and good-natured insult in one.
No sooner did he note this fact than did the hand still gripping tight on his shoulder loosen and then disappear, and he became aware of two sets of feet on old clay tiles around him, one approaching and one fleeing, and somewhere, just out of reach before him—the damnable jingle of coins, light feet clicking on tiled rooftops, and bright peals of almost-familiar laughter.
He blinked his second sight into place before he could think better of it, noting only dimly the suggestion of blue in the corner of his vision that was Federico behind him.
The blur of gold-so-bright-it-burned-like-the-Sun that was his quarry swayed in empty space, and then disappeared, falling in a streak of stardust to the dull white safety-hidden-preservation-of-the-self of the petal-strewn cart he knew lay below.
Another worrying confirmation to Federico's suspicions—that this outsider not only knew of their rooftop installations, but understood their purpose as well.
Giovanni's thoughts strayed to the Pasha's warning and he found that could not quite shake the ice-cold chill of terror.
MEMORY 8: A CHANGE OF PLANS
"Volpe. All that I ask is that you do your damned job."
"'Vanni, listen—"
"No. Volpe, you listen to me. They came to my house, involved my family—which you know, and I know, and doubtless they do as well—that you don't fucking do."
Federico spared a brief glance of trepidation to the half-open window above him. His father rarely ever lost his temper, and rarely ever indulged in such vulgar language—except, it seemed, in matters where his family were concerned.
Somehow, this did not surprise him.
"You are panicking again, uccellino—"
Federico blinked at the oddly gentle nickname. It half-sounded like something he might have called Ezio when they were younger—and seemed all the queerer for it having come from the normally stoic and aloof Fox of Florence; let alone the fact that it had been directed at his father, of all people.
Were circumstances any but what they currently were, he might even have found it in himself to snicker at the absurdity of it.
For now, he wisely contented himself with keeping quiet, and slouched further into the deep shadows of overhang jutting from the building adjacent to the guild-hall, gaze roving the street and rooftops in a wary vigil for guards or nosey eavesdroppers.
…He didn't count. Father had brought him along, and instructed him to remain in the street with clipped, short sentences that belied a growing fury. It wasn't eavesdropping if you were supposed to be there. Honestly.
"My father made you who you are." his father snarled suddenly, interrupting whatever the Fox had been about to say."Whoever you were before, you owe us this now."
The quiet that followed was so absolute that one could clearly hear the faint metallic ching of a coin being tossed in some impromptu gambling game being played by a group of the guild's thieves on a rooftop at the far end of the street.
What exactly his father meant by that was as clear as mud to Federico—whatever Father knew of Messere Volpe, Federico knew ten times less than that.
But even he could tell from the strident tones of his father's voice that those words were a cruel and unnecessary jab made in the heat of his fear-ladened fury—one which his father would doubtlessly regret having said later, when his rarely-provoked but trigger-quick temper has cooled.
And, judging from the Fox's sudden, frosty silence—it had been a jab that had found its mark—one that would not easily be taken back.
"He put you in charge of this guild for one reason; to establish a rapport with the underground of Florence. So that things like this wouldn't happen. Control your thieves, find this bastard, and make him disappear."
Federico winced.
He could only hope that Messere Volpe would not be petty enough to withhold the promised translation out of sheer spite—though given his Father's ill-tempered and off-kilter state; he wasn't even sure if he wanted Volpe to. At least, not any time soon.
Or if whatever was hidden in that coded scrawl was even worth subjecting his younger brother to his father's attention now… in the midst of… whatever was going on.
The shutters burst open suddenly with the slight whine of hinges deliberately allowed to rust, and then slapped against the brick wall with a dull wooden clack.
"Do what needs to be done." his father snapped, reappearing in the open window and vaulting over the ledge to land in a crouch on the street below, before rising to his feet and striding past Federico, wordlessly expecting that he would follow. "—If you don't, I will."
And even though he was backlit by the light of the Thieves guild-hall window—and his face was, as ever, half concealed beneath the shadows of his hood—Federico would swear the Fox's face was stricken with a raw, undisguised expression of equal parts grief and terror.
NOTES:
oh, does that last line /remind/ you of anything, Volpe?
say... that one time in rome, maybe?
huh gee that sure is weird. probably just a weird one off occurrence. definitely won't happen again. don't worry about it.
it's probably nothing!
[oopsies gilberto :)]
If you saw me sneak in a bit of Isu script from AC: Valhalla... no you didn't.
TRANSLATIONS:
ISU
unwahæ - root word meaning untrue, false.