Lesson in Letting Go
It had been sixty-two years since I had touched the Apple. Sixty-two years and yet, as I looked in the mirror, I had not aged since that day under the Vaticano. I was like Altair and Alanna. I had not heed their warning. I had thrown it all out the window for what? Nothing had come from that except a message to a man I knew nothing of. I was nearing one hundred, with the face of my youth. I was alone in the world. My mother died nearly forty years ago, Claudia, twenty-three. And my beautiful Sophia. I watched her grow old and die in my arms while I stayed the same. She did not resent me. She said she pitied me. I would never grow old and see the world through those eyes. See the lights of Heaven's Gate.
I felt the tears fall from my eyes as the let them come. I was a walking relic of time's past. Was this what they went through. No, they awoke after their loved ones had pasted into the next life. I was alive and awake for everything. I saw they grow old. I commented their bodies to the ground. I watched as they took their last breaths and leave me to my loneliness. I was truly on my own for the first time in my life.
The tears came harder as I fell to my knees. My children did not know who I was. Their children would never know. To them I had died going back for knowledge that was not there. I had died on a pilgrimage back to the Masyaf. I was dead to them. But I watched over them and now they were grown. Sophia was gone, and left me with thoughts I did not want.
I had always asked myself, why? But I had no idea why I did not listen to them. The cursed thing had destroyed them. They warned me. I heeded nothing. Now, I was left with ghosts that haunted my thoughts. My waking dreams. I was immortal and alone.
I lifted my head from my hands. I knew what I had to do. I had to find them. I knew not where they were, but I would find them. I had eternity, yes? I dried my tears and grabbed my belongings. I would start now. I would hunt out every trace I could find. I was a master assassin. I could find them
I set out on a journey. Before then, stopped in Firenze. My birthplace, and now where I finally laid my past behind me.
Paying for some flowers from a street vender, I made my way to meet the people that meant the most to me.
Laying the flowers in front of the massive headstone, I felt the tears come once again. "Hello my beautiful ladies. I have come to say goodbye. It may be many years until I say hello once more to you, but I know what must do..."
After I left, the only thing to tell I had been there was the fresh flowers, and the tear marks on the headstone.
I would have to say, this is the darkest I have ever written. I mean, I was about to cry as I was rereading this. You now know where Ezio quit aging at. He is in his late thirties. Brotherhood age. I hope you have enjoyed this. I am trying to stay in the time line. Next will be Altair. Don't know where I will have that one at, but see you then.