Wow! I'm still alive! Sorry I haven't updated any of my stories in like...a month each. My life as a tumblr addict is getting out of control and I couldn't bring myself to sacrifice scrolling time to write or update. Pathetic, I know. But TADA here is chapter 6. yay. *Throws confetti and vomits everywhere*
Chapter 6-Fang P.O.V.
I pulled a black tunic with a slit in the middle of the chest over my head, pulling my hair back and tying it back, up into its ponytail and grabbing a large canvas bag and a few spare coins I had made from paid assassinations. I backed out into the hallway, kicking the door closed with my heel...
"Oof!" I turned into a girl with a pile of sheets so high in her arms I couldn't see her face. I had knocked the bundle out of her arms, and she squealed and her arms flew up in the air, the last of her pile falling to the floor in the narrow hallway.
"Oh! Sorry, sorry. I'm so clumsy! Which is strange, but you probably don't care about that. I was just doing laundry because my bed sheets were dirty and I like them to be clean and so I did the ones in Iggys room too, because he's a mess. Sorry, I didn't catch your name?" She told me all in one breath, brushing her waist length, caramel colored curls over she shoulder, looking at me expectantly.
"Altair." She rolled her eyes, kneeling to pick up the sheets on the ground.
"I mean real name. I'm Nudge. But they call me Monique. Iggy lives in the room across from mine."
"Fang." I told her, helping her up and taking half of her pile, She laughed and just dumped them in the middle of her floor. Her room was an exact replica of mine, aside from different cussion colors and a soft brown falcon on a perch in the far right corner, preening.
"Man of many words, huh." She said, taking a bag similar from mine from the corner of her wardrobe, and pulled it over her shoulder. I smirked and nodded.
"Well, I'm heading out to visit the merchants, if you're heading that way, maybe you could walk with me. We might even see Iggy and then I can introduce you guys and that would be so super duper because I'm friends with Iggy and then we could all be friends because he lives up here too and we could all be friends..." I gave her a look with wide eyes and she immediately shut up.
"Sorry." She said, folding her arms over her stomach and gatherign fistfulls of her purple tunic in her fists. We went down the ladder and out of the haven, into the dry outside and down the hill into Florence. I just now noticed what was strange about Nudge. She wore her hair loose down her back, not all tied up, and wore an outfit like mine. With a long, thin tunic and brown pants with laced knee boots, Instead of a skirt and sandals like most girls. She turned to wait, and smiled at me, and I offered a small smile back.
"So...How old were you?" She asked me, looking expectant. I assumed she meant when I was taken in by the brotherhood.
"I was two, but began training at six. I'm eighteen." I told her; I wasn't sure why I was telling her this, usually I never revealed anything about myself to anyone. Maybe it was because we were in the guild together and I had never met her before.
"I was trained by my dad starting when I was six too, but the templars discovered him and killed him. I never had a mom." She told me like it was no big deal, picking at her nails.
"Thats sucks." Was all I was able to scrape together. I would feel horrible if something like that happened to my parent. Nudge just laughed and playfully punched my shoulder.
"Well, Not really. I like being an assassin, going all over Israel is totally cool if you ask me." She said, and I smiled, I totally agreed. We walked deeper into the busy market, pushing past people to get to the different stalls.
"Hey! Over here!" Nudge waved me over to a stall with boxes of vegetables and different herbs tied in thick bunches hanging from the beams above the stall. A small old woman took Nudges coins as she took five potatoes and a few other things, putting them in her bag and smiling happily at the small woman. I stared at the box of bright red apples, and took two, along with a few other things and giving the old woman a few coins and putting my food in my bag. I followed Nudge to a few other places, my bag now half full.
"Out of the way!" I heard a few people yelling and a few guards pushing people out of the way, the governors son and Maximum walking behind them. She was looking around the market, her eyes bright. I made my way through the crowd towards her, feeling my heart pick up in my chest. She didn't see me, but when I passed her, I looped my arm around her waist and swept her into the crowd. She struggled against me for a second, before looking up at my face.
"Kidnapping me again?" She asked, looking bemused. I rolled my eyes but couldn't keep down a smile.
"Yep. You looked like you were having a great time." She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.
"Looks like you're saving me again." I chuckled and we walked away from the caravan. She grinned up at me and I scratched my arm, trying to hide my nervousness around her. She wrapped her cold fingers around my bicep lightly as we walked to the edge of the crowd. I heard a whistle and looked up to see Nudge and a boy with pale blonde hair and icy blue eyes sitting with their legs dangling over the edge of a clay house rooftop. Nudge waves ecstatically at me, shooting me a thumbs up, but I just rolled my eyes at her.
Maximum peeked into my bag, seeing the few vegetables and meat I had gotten.
"You're going to need some spices, if you plan on cooking with that." She told me, and I gave her a confused look. She laughed at me, and took my hand, sending a wave of heat up my arm and through my body. She tugged on my arm a little bit, and I followed her to a different stall. It had dark green plants hanging from the rafters along with dried flowers, and other plants and flowers in baskets and smaller mason jars contained different red, yellow, or brown stuff. Maximum smiled sweetly at the old woman tending the stall, and started sorting through the various jars. She chose one filled with white rocks, another with red powder, another with a yellowy-white powder, and another with what looked like pine needles. She pointed to the rafters, and the old woman looked at her affectionately.
"One of those, please." She asked, and the old woman nodded happily and stepped up on a stool and untied a particularly thick bunch of the leafy green whatever-it-was. She put it down on the counter next to the jars.
"That's good." Max told me, and I fished out four small gold coins from my bag, handing to the old woman, who just smiled and winked at me. I smiled mischievously back and put the jars carefully into my bag so they sat on the bottom, the green stuff on top. Max hurried away to the next stall over, and I turned and handed the woman a gold coin, pointing at a basket of flowers that I knew.
"Can I have a daffodil?" I asked, and the woman grinned at me and took five flowers from the basket, giving me back seven small silver coins.
"Five for one, for your pretty fiance." She told me excitedly, and I felt my face grow hot. The princess, she thought was my fiance? I just smiled back sheepishly and went to find Maximum. I found her at a clothing stall. I quickly dropped the bright yellow flowers into my bag.
That was a bad, bad idea. Bad, Fang. I scolded myself mentally as I stood next to her, and she looked up at me with those doe-like brown eyes, tendrils of her gold and honey coloured hair coming out of its braid.
"I got you this." She told me excitedly, pushing a bundle of white into my hands. My eyes widening, i held it up to look at it.
"You didn't have too." I told her, and she turned her head down so I couldn't see her face, but I saw a smile on her lips. It was a white tunic, the same style as the black one I was wearing, but the edges of it had several rows of red stitches around all the edges.
"It reminded me of you." She told me, and I wrapped my arm not holding the tunic around her small shoulders and hugging her to my side.
"Thanks." I told her in a hushed voice, still unable to see her face. She pushed a curly piece of hair away from her eyes and smiled up at me again.
"If you want, I could show you what the spices are used for...Do you live in the city?" She asked, and I felt my stomach drop. It would be very dangerous to take her up in the sanctuary. Although I liked her, I couldn't put my brothers and sisters in danger. (Not actual brothers and sisters, its just brotherhood siblings.) Her knowing my true identity was dangerous enough, but I wasn't sure showing her where I was staying was safe, for her or anyone else.
"I'm not sure thats a good idea..." I trailed off, and she slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand, letting out a small laugh.
"Ahh, sorry, I forgot about the whole...assassin thing." She leaned in and said with a hushed voice, moving her eyebrows in a suggestive way that caught me of guard, and I laughed at the face she was making, she stood up straight again, a grin showing her teeth. I let out the breath I had been holding in as we headed away from the market, the large crowd of people thinning out the further away from it we went.
It was about midday, and the sun was beginning to warm the cool morning air. Maximum grabbed her thick braid hanging down her back and fiddled with the end, watching her feet as she walked.
"Do you want to find some shade?" She asked, and I nodded, secretly wishing that she would take my hand again, missing the feeling of her cold, small hand in mine in the market. We walked in comfortable quiet up the hill leading to the castle and the church.
"Where are we going?" I asked, and she bumped her shoulder into mine.
"I woke up early and poked around a little bit. You'll see when we get there." She gave me another smile, and I felt my stomach rise into my throat, and I struggled to hold back a grin. She was just so cute.
Instead of going towards the castle, she went left and up a steep hill towards the church, the same church where the sanctuary was. She climbed the steep hill easily, and went carelessly through the church, ignoring the guards who shot us wary looks. She just walked straight from the front of the church's open main room to the back, which led out into an expansive garden that was also the castles garden. The front of the garden had flowers and benches, but the back of the garden became dark trees, that most people didn't go into, because they believed the assassins bureau had set up in there, when we were really in the church.
Maximum sat down on a stone bench, patting the seat next to her. The bench was close to the woods, the church not in view and the trees providing cool shade. I sat next to her, watching for a few seconds as her face relaxed and her eyes flickered around the garden.
"So what do you think of the Gunthers?" I asked her, and she huffed and leaned back on the bench.
"Well, the governors wife seemed nice enough." She told me, playing with the end of her braid again.
"Not Dylan? He's the one you will be marrying, after all." I asked, and her lip curled slightly.
"I didn't really talk to him. I'm not really one for the whole "arranged marriage" concept." I nodded, I agreed with her, but I didn't ever plan on getting married. My job didn't really didn't allow that, and I didn't like Nudge THAT much.
"What concept do you like?" I asked, feeling curious. She chuckled, turning in her seat to look me straight in the eye.
"I think people should be able to fall in love. I wish I wasn't born into my family, but a poor one instead. Where I would be able to marry whoever I wanted and have my parents support." I could just nod. She looked so sad, and. Couldn't do anything to make it better, could I?
"It sounds really hard." Was all I could come up with, and she smiled sadly.
"Will you be my friend, Fang." She asked, her chocolate eyes widening, as if she thought that I would say no. I went impassive, and refused to look at her.
"Fang?" She asked, tugging on my sleeve a little.
"Fang...if you don't want to be my friend thats okay..." I couldn't keep it in, a traitorous smile slipped onto my face for a second before I went back to impassive, but she had seen it.
"Hey!" She hissed at me, shoving my shoulder playfully with a smile on her face. I looked back at her, propping my head up on the heels on my hands, which were propped in my knees.
"So you will be my friend?" She asked again, looking hopeful. Most of her curly hair had come out of its braid and was hanging in her face in little tendrils. I tucked it behind her ear, and she dropped her gaze and blushed.
"Yeah. Promise."
Max-P.O.V.
"Will I see you tomorrow?" I asked Fang, and he looked down at me. His eyes were soft, not cold and scary like they were the first time I met him in the alley when he pulled me away from Lissa and Anne.
"Sure, if I can find you." He smirked, and I pouted. I dragged my toes in the sand. I dragged my toes in the dirt. Fang had walked me back out of the garden after we realized we had missed lunch and the sun was going down.
"Bye, Fang." I told him, and turned to walk away. I didn' make it two steps before his fingers wrapped around my wrist. Turning back to him, he pulled flowers out of his bag and held them out to me, looking...sheepish?
I took the flowers from him, five of the yellow blooms in total.
"Where did you get them?" I breathed, and his face lit up.
"From the old lady who you got the spices from. She sold flowers too." I felt a blush rise in my cheeks again, no one had ever gotten me something out of thought. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around Fangs waist.
"Thank You." I whispered, and he relaxed, hugging me back and resting his chin on the top of my head. I breathed in his scent before pulling away from him reluctantly. I smiled down at the flowers, still in a daze that he would get me flowers. I think that they were daffodils, my knowledge of flowers wasn't exactly extensive...
"Fang I..." I started, but when I looked up he was gone. How had he left so quietly? The smile faded from my face, replaced with a frown as I turned to walk back into the castle courtyard. At the center of the courtyard, Dylan was yelling at a guard, who looked uncomfortable. I tried to walk past them without them noticing me, but Dylan spotted me and called out to me.
"Maximum! Where have you been!" Overdone concern flashed across his face and the guard scurried away.
"I walked around." I replied blandly, and he pulled me into a hug, crushing me to his body. I went still, before awkwardly wrapping my left arm around him, trying not to squish the yellow flowers in my right hand. He pulled away from me and clasped my shoulders hard, shaking me softly.
"You missed two meals, you poor thing! We'll find food for you, come Maximum." He took my left hand and practically dragged me into the castle through a door to the left. I struggled to keep up with him as he burst through the double doors to the dining hall. It was now abandoned and there was nothing left on the table. He dropped my arm and went into the kitchen, which was blocked from my view with a curtain. I went to the table and hesitantly sat down at the left place from the foot of the table, not feeling comfortable taking any place of honor.
Dylan appeared again and slid a plate of still hot food in front of me. Pork, beans, and a few buttered rolls. My mind flashed back to Fang, what would he be eating tonight? I picked up a roll as Dylan sat across from me and watched me as I chewed.
"So, Maximum." He started, and I felt my stomach drop. He wasn't smiling anymore but glaring across the table at me. I didn reply to him, but just tried to hold my gaze steady to his, refusing to let him make me uncomfortable.
¨Mind sharing with me where you wandered off to half way through your tour?" He asked, taking a bite of his food, his eyes not even blinking as he watched me. I gulped down my last bite of bread, trying to swallow the guilty lump in the throat.
¨I decided to explore the city on my own." It wasn entirely a lie, I had been with Fang, or Altair or whatever his name actually was. He frowned and shook his head, and gaining some confidence, loaded my plate with mutton and a few slices of orange.
"You shouldn't wander away like that. You have no idea what kind of people are out there." He said, looking stern. I stabbed a piece of meat, ripping off a chunk of fat with my teeth, watching his lips purse at my bad manners, I noted with glee.
"Maybe you should have kept a better eye on me." I stated nonchalantly, like it was no big deal. His head snapped up to glare at me across the table, but I simply stared dumbly back at him, determined to make my stay here as unpleasant as possible. He continued to watch me as I ate, jitters and the feeling of power rising in my stomach, he was going to have one hell of a time.