Disclaimer: I don't own Assassin's Creed or any of its characters.
A/N: So I've gotten positive reviews on Altair's backstory which is great and thank you guys but I got to give credit where credit is due. I did not make up Altair's backstory instead I got it from the Assassin Creed novels written by Oliver Bowden. If you haven't read them, I highly suggest you do. They go so much more in depth with the characters then the games do! But until then enjoy my story!
Any mistakes are mine!
Altair had once thought Mario to be a calm level headed individual, once.
Altair growled and he ran after the eldest Auditore to the stables outside the limits of his home. The man was not thinking clearing and letting his emotions rule him.
"What is it you plan to do? Storm San Gimignano and kill Vieri and the Pazzi?" He demaned.
"Si."Mario replied curtly, attending to that beast of a war horse he kept around.
"You endanger yourself, your family, your Brotherhood. All because you want to avenge your brother's death? You are no better than the Templars." Altair spoke without thinking. His mind was frayed and the last thing he needed was to go after the elder Assassin because Mario did something stupid. Worst he didn't Ezio jumping into it.
Blood dripped from Altair's lips and stained his white robes. Pain blossomed in his jaw. Altair rotated his jaw and heard a crack but nothing seemed broken. He turned back to the elder Assassin.
Mario still had his arm outstretched, his fist curled up and shaking. He was panting softly and looked even surprised by his own actions. Slowly he righted himself and fixed his clothing.
"Better to die in battle than to take the blame for someone else. That's the coward's way out." Mario spoke in a disgusted tone and Altair responded in just the way he had expected. Still the Assassin was taken by surprise.
Altair's fists torn into the fabric of Mario's tunic and despite the Auditore being the bigger man Altair had no trouble holding him against the stable wall. Mario gripped the wrists of his attacker yet could not find the strength to fend him off.
This was Altair, the Master Assassin, fueled by rage and adrenalin. He was not a force to be reckoned on a good day and Mario had just pressed him pass the limit. He looked into the eyes of his could-be killer. Through dark, the torch light reflected on his amber orbs and Mario was shunned. Altair's eyes had turned to stone, cold and unfeeling.
This wasn't the Altair that Ezio knew. This was the killer, Death in white robes.
"Do it." Mario said through the thick silence, under his hands, he could feel the blade start to move in the bracer. Hear the almost silent sound of metal on metal. The tip of Altair's hidden blade peeked out and it was so sharp. Just a tiny touch and Mario would be dead. With only his murderer had a witness, Altair could get away it as well. The thought chilled the Auditore. He didn't know what Altair would do at this point.
"Do it and prove you are no better than the Templar." Altair thought to do it. Just one small flick of his wrist and the stubborn man would be dead and the Assassins would live to see another day. Ezio would get over it with time.
Ezio.
It was like the name had been a bucket of cold water dumped over Altair's head. Shattering his resolve and leaving a bitter feeling in its wake that went to his core. Altair took back his blade and released Ezio's uncle. He may not care for the man, but Ezio did. He stepped back and Mario sagged in relief that he had not died. Altair looked at the ground as his actions came up with him. He could only image what Giovanni would have done, had he been alive.
"He was important to me as well." Mario looked up to his almost killer in shock.
Then realization, remembrance, dawned on him slowly. There had been a time when Altair had not been the killer that stood before him. Once there was a time when he had just been a scared boy from the Levantine Brotherhood who had just lost his father. Who looked for guidance and role model in Giovanni. Once there had been a time when Giovanni had been very important to the Master Assassin.
"He may not have been blood but he was important to me." Altair turned away from the elder Assassin. Letting him sit on the cold hay covered ground.
"Go to San Gimignano or not but do not expect help from myself or Ezio." Altair stamped out through clenched teeth and stalked back inside to the Auditore Villa. Hoping to the gods, the man would wise up and not do something stupid.
"He has left us then." The voice was horse and quiet and in echoed just a bit in the large, empty Villa. Altair was actually startled by it. So caught up in his own thoughts. He had failed to hear them approach. Not that he had expected to hear much from them.
He turned to Maria Auditore, looking worn and tired beyond what sleep could ever give her. Altair's heart broke a bit at the sight of this woman. Just like Giovanni had been important to him, so had Maria.
"Yes, the idiot is determined to do something stupid. Must be in the blood." He commented and saw just tiniest of smile on Maria's face.
"He has upset you?" She observed. Altair and Mario never really clicked before and fighting between them was often.
"No more than usual." Maria smiled just the smallest smile and held out her hands for the young man. Glad some things had not shifted.
Altair sighed and walked to the woman. He accepted her hands in his. Feeling her smooth and small hands give his callous ones warmth. He looked down at the woman who had always been kind and gentle towards him when she didn't have to.
Maria looked up at him sadly and pulled down the white hood. She touched the bruised jaw and bloody, with a frown setting in on her face.
"Altair." He looked up from under his brow at her. "What Umar did." Altair closed his eyes at his father's name. "Was not wrong but honorable. Do not let anyone twist the truth. Do you understand?" Altair sighed, it seemed he was always having this conversion with her.
"Yes, omm." He said and Maria's face seemed to brighten. Like an ember being revived.
"Maria, please. Talk to Ezio, he needs his mother right now." Yet the mention of her last surviving son seem to be the harsh wind that blew out the ember. Maria's face turned blank and the life dulled in her brilliant colored eyes. She released his hands and moved without thought.
"Maria. Please." He almost begged her. His plea fell on deaf ears as Maria left his sight. The Assassin sighed after her and stared at the space she had once stood. He stood listening to the soft click of her bedroom door and retreated to the office himself.
It took only a moment to find his Codex on the bookshelf that also served as a doorway into an underground chamber. He picked out the leather bound book and opened it to its beginning.
The group of pages that held Altair's private thought in plain view. He shared the book with the Florence Assassins, know most would only care for the designs for weaponry and armor and skip over the personal details. As most could not read in his naïve tongue.
The first page he flipped to hold a hand drawn picture of his mother, Maud, or at least what Altair had been told what she looked like. Through she ended up looking a bit like Maria Auditore. A handful of things he remembered his father had said about her were written down for him to remember her by. He stared at the drawing, his eyes followed the flow of ink that made up her features.
He turned the page and to anyone else, it looked like a picture of himself, hood and all. It was not him, however, it was his father Umar. Try as he might, Altair could not remember the man's face. Only the shadow that covered his eyes and the hood that looked like an eagle's beak.
He snapped the book shut as the tale tell creak of weight on wood alerted him someone was in the room with him. He quickly replaced the Codex to sit hidden among others. He turned to greet the person.
Thinking it was Mario who had come to his senses and returned. Hoping it was Maria who had snapped back out of her silence to talk with him again. Praying it was not Ezio, demanding they take action or seek guidance. It was none of those people. It was someone he had rarely spoken to.
"Claudia." He nodded in greeting to the young woman in the had rarely even spoken or even seen each other.
Claudia looked perfect to the world and any artist would kill to paint her. She was doubtlessly beautiful with flawless skin and dark flowing hair and bright eyes that matched her older brother's to a point who would think they were twins. Sadness was shining in her brown eyes and she look liked she had been crying. It was a tragic sight for someone as delicate and sweet as her. Claudia kept her eyes down cast and picked on the collar of her sleeve instead of looking to Altair.
"I would like to know…what happened." She said meekly. Altair's heart broke for her. There was no doubt she had learned of her family's deaths but the gruesome details might have been left out to spare her.
"I think perhaps it is wiser if-" Altair started but never finished.
"I don't want wise! I want to know what happened to my family!" Claudia shouted with such anger Altair jumped back in surprise. In one blink the meek little beauty was gone and replace with a fierce tigress of a woman.
"I am not some fragile porcelain doll that will shatter when pushed!" She stormed into the room in a flurry of fabric and grabbed hold Altair. She pulled him down to meet her level but as she gazed at him. Her fury started to fizzle and was replaced by a desperate fear.
Tears formed and fell down her cheeks."Please…" She begged and looked into his eyes with her big brown ones and Altair swore she could easily persuade any man to do anything with those eyes. "I need to know what happened." She demanded and Altair sighed.
There had once been a time in his life when he didn't have to be the force to hold everything broken together.
A/n: Funny thing about this chapter, I wrote it all and then my laptop froze and I had to rewrite it. Haha it was great...
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