Disclaimer:I do not own Ezio or any other mentioned Assassin's Creed characters, they are the property of Ubisoft. As for the historical characters mentioned… well.. I guess they belong to history… or themselves…
Glossary:
Bocconotti – a pastry that has many variants. In this story, it's the standard cream puff.
It had been 3 years since the day he ran screaming from the mausoleum. It was a sort of blessing in disguise; a perceivable distance had been growing between him and his father since Giovanni lashed out at him for falling and hurting his head. He started to wonder if his father liked him less than his other siblings, and as a result, stopped actually saying anything of note to his father.
However, the father-son relationship seemed to have mended somewhat when he ran straight from that terrifying place into the safety of his father's arms. That was a moment he never forgot, even when he got a lot older. The look of worry and relief in his father's face was all that Ezio needed to convince him that he was still… significant … in his father's eyes.
He never wanted that feeling to go away.
Which was why he never mentioned that the absolute darkness of the crypt blazed with that eerie light… an eerie light that apparently, only he could see. At first, he thought that the strange luminescence was a phenomenon that he would never experience again. However, he started seeing it more and more frequently. Often, he would be walking along a street, sometimes even in the daytime, and all of a sudden, it was as if a black veil was thrown over everything and certain people started glowing in strange colours.
Frankly, Ezio was terrified at what he saw. He particularly hated it when the strange vision popped up at night. The first time it happened in his bedroom, he had to bite his own lip to stop himself from screaming. He also started to become fearful of the darkness - of night. Sleeping in a darkened room became a terrible ordeal. Somehow, the shadows would form into the horrible shapes of demons that chased him around the subterranean world of the crypt.
After a few months of yawning and falling asleep at the breakfast table, Ezio finally stumbled upon a solution. He would keep a lighted candle by his bed to help him fall asleep. Somehow the strange dark sight didn't occur as much if he had a bright candle by his nightstand.
This would have worked out fine, if he was able to keep his secret completely hidden.
The fireplace, now unlit in the daytime slid open and Giovanni emerged from the secret room behind the brick wall. He was startled by the elegant figure of his wife standing in front of it, waiting for him to emerge.
"He nearly burnt down the bedroom this time," Maria was worried and slightly furious.
"Is he- ?"
"Ezio's safe," his mother replied. "Speak with him Giovanni, he needs you."
Giovanni sighed, "Ezio will get over this. Most young children usually overcome their fear of the night."
"Your son's THIRTEEN."
"But what's there to be said? - 'Son, don't be afraid of the darkness?' " the words rolled awkwardly off his lips. "No one in my family has ever had a problem … like this."
Frankly, it was downright embarrassing. Although Giovanni didn't utter the words, his eyes said it all.
"There is something wrong with him, Giovanni," Maria pleaded. "Something must have happened down in that awful crypt, but he won't tell me what it is."
Giovanni rubbed his temples, "but you're his mothe- "
"You HAVE to talk to YOUR SON," she sounded quite firm. "Maybe he might tell you what he's hiding… since you BOTH like to keep your secrets!"
Giovanni glared at his wife, but only for a brief moment before turning away. He knew better than to cross her when she had a firm view about something. Although they shared a strong bond, he sometimes wondered if she had second thoughts about being with him, a part of his unique family.
He waited till the boys were done having lessons with their tutor. Watching them in their daily class from beyond a slightly open doorway, he began to notice that Ezio was starting to look less and less like a male scion of his family. Only thirteen, he looked twice his age, almost like a miniature version of Giovanni, in a long velvet coat with a high ruffled collar and a soft hat… and a similar hairstyle with hair that touched his shoulders and covered half his face, whenever he looked down… and Ezio stared at the floor… a lot.
The tutor however, was full of praise for his younger son. Ezio was diligent in his studies and intelligent.
"I predict he would make a most accomplished banker," the tutor remarked.
Giovanni winced. He was actually glad that he never told either of his sons about their true legacy. If either one of them found out about it, the other would soon be informed. Federico would someday find out from him about the "family business", but that would have to be a day when his eldest could keep a secret, even from his younger brother.
Almost the exact opposite of his brother, Ezio looked very pale, and quite soft, without an ounce of discernable muscle (not that there was anything discernable under that large, shapeless coat he wore.) and quite frankly, Giovanni suspected that he was probably going to grow into a short and rather plump man. (He just didn't look as tall as Federico.)
Just like a Florentine banker.
Giovanni sighed. It would be the first time that his family had only one male assassin in a single generation. His brother had no children, and neither Ezio nor Petruccio were in any physical condition to inherit his mantle.
"Ezio, come here." he managed to catch hold of Ezio after the class, before both boys ran off to play with their friends.
Ezio shuffled slowly towards his father, his shoulders stooped as though he was carrying the weight of the ages, and his gaze firmly fixed on the ground in front of him. His hands were cold and shaking a little, but he kept them in the pockets of his coat. His father gestured for Ezio to sit beside him on a couch in the office where Giovanni conducted most of his daytime banking affairs.
"Ezio, your mother and I are very worried about you," Ezio never lifted his gaze from the floor as his father continued.
"I know, papa."
"If there is anything.. anything at all that is troubling you… please … tell us… tell me," he reached out for his son's shoulder. "What's wrong, Ezio?"
Silence. There was no response from his son, save for the slight twitching of his lip.
"Son, we love you very much."
Ezio lifted his head. His eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"Papa –"
More than anything, Ezio wanted to tell his father about his fears and about the strange visions he had been having. But he could not. Basking in the glow of his father's love, he didn't want this moment to go away, if his father knew about his freakish sight, he would never look at Ezio the same way ever again.
Unable to bear the burden of speaking the truth, Ezio rushed out of the study as fast as he could. So fast, it caught Giovanni by surprise and he lost Ezio as the boy raced out into the crowded Florentine streets.
Despite his network of "friends" throughout the city, for once, Giovanni had absolutely no idea where his second son went. Or in fact, where Ezio kept disappearing to in the middle of the day. It seemed the boy had a natural talent for vanishing into the crowd. Although it was just as likely that an unremarkable individual who constantly walked with stooped shoulders would be a lot harder to pick out in a crowd than a tall boy striding through the throng with a confident air.
Actually the first place that the thirteen-year-old made a stop at was a store in the marketplace that sold Bocconotti. He didn't quite remember when he developed a penchant for the fluffy, sugar-dusted pastry, but they always made him feel better, especially if he helped himself to a bag of freshly baked puffs.
As the day wore on, Ezio ended up wandering around the city streets till the early evening. He didn't notice that the sun was dipping and soon it would be dark – the time of his worst fears. He was deep in thought, his little mind churning up as many solutions as he could. Candles weren't the solution; he would only end up burning down his bedroom again, or even worse, the family home. Ezio had to find someway to keep a light in his room without endangering everyone in the house.
It was nearly nightfall when he chanced upon a dark-skinned, foreign merchant selling lamps made of brightly-coloured glass. The lamps were larger than the normal ones that were available in many other stalls, and some of them consisted of a cage of wrought iron with jewel-like windows.
Ezio surmised that the sturdy iron cage and glass might help keep the fire inside and away from his bed sheets and the wooden furniture while providing light. A safer alternative than the naked candles he had been using before. Although they were quite expensive, he managed to get a decent-sized lamp from the merchant.
The streets were dark when he started to head back home. Fearful of the strange shadows that seemed to reach out with murky tentacles from the corners of buildings, Ezio found himself running quickly to get home (or at least running as fast as he could, stopping frequently to catch his breath. He really couldn't sustain a run for any decent length of time.) However, carrying a heavy lantern while running on cobbled streets, it was only a matter of time before he stumbled on the uneven stone.
He managed to slow his fall enough so that his precious lantern survived undamaged. As he struggled to get up, the shadows of the night that he was running away from seemed to loom ever larger over him, as if the monsters that he feared were somehow catching up with him. Then suddenly, without warning, his vision shifted and the world was plunged into the eerie blackness of his dreaded "sight". Gasping for air and tearing up in fear, Ezio stumbled to a wall with reticulated windows. Before stumbling on the uneven cobblestone, he had noticed some light coming out from the delicately interlaced panels of those windows. Looking into them, he hoped that a brief glimpse of some kind of light would dispel the gloomy veil caused by the "sight".
The shock of staring directly into a brightly lit lamp did jolt Ezio's vision back to normal, but he almost wished it never happened. For in the same instance, he found himself staring into the faces of two young men who were grapping each other ( without much of their clothes ) in a rather strange position.
There was a shot, tense silence as the couple stared at the boy and then they all screamed. The noise and confusion soon attracted a small group of men who were carrying torches. There was a lot of shouting, and in the commotion, Ezio spotted one of the half-dressed young men leaping out of an open window. Sensing that he had caused some kind of trouble, the boy ran away from the scene as fast as he could, turning through many small streets, till he started to wheeze and cough because of the tightness building up in his chest. Knowing that he could not keep it up much longer, he jumped into a large pile of hay (it seemed the natural thing to do) and kept as quiet as he could.
Ezio peeked out of the hay pile only when he could no longer hear the voices of the men with torches.
"God in heaven, who are you?"
The voice was right beside him. Ezio turned his head in shock. A young man with tan-coloured hair and the scant beginnings of a beard growing from his chin sat up in the hay beside him. The boy immediately recognized him as one of the two he had seen earlier in the strange position.
Although his mother frequently reminded him not to talk to strangers, Ezio found the handsome face of this young fellow rather likeable.
"Ezio. And you?"
The young man's mouth fell open in surprise. Then he chuckled.
"Leonardo."
"Why are those men chasing you?"
For the second time in a single night, the young man who called himself "Leonardo" found himself gaping like a goldfish and then closed his mouth again without saying a single word.
After a significant pause, he remarked, "Aren't you supposed to be home in bed?"
Before Ezio could make any kind of reply to the question, the group of men that they had both tried to avoid, converged on the hay pile. Despite a desperate attempt to make a dash for freedom, the grown men were quicker than he was and managed to wrestle Ezio to the ground before dragging them both off to the Office of the Night.