It doesn't take them long to find the kid- all they have to do is follow the sounds of raised voices. Altair hears them first- too distant to make out what they're saying, but he can tell they're angry. He points the direction to Ezio, and they run toward the voices. They haven't gone very far at all when they hear a new voice, and this one belongs to a child.
"Do you smell smoke?" Ezio asks.
Altair nods, and a few seconds later they come to the source of the voices- four men surrounding a child on the ground- and stop.
"I don't like this," Ezio says.
Altair doesn't either, but for the moment, he says nothing. One of the men is talking, and he doesn't much care for what he's saying.
"And so I spare you, that you may carry word to your people. Let them know the sooner we are given what we seek, the sooner you can return to your pathetic, empty lives. A fair trade, is it not?"
The child looks up at the man, and there's no fear on his face. "What is your name?"
"Charles Lee." The man has his back to Altair, but he can hear the smirk in his voice. "Why?"
"So I can find you," says the child, and Lee laughs.
"I look forward to it," he says, and turns away, gesturing for the others to follow him. The child looks up, and his eyes meet Altair's. Up until now, Altair wouldn't have guessed the kid is afraid at all. But there's fear in his eyes, and something else, too. A question, or a plea. Help me.
Time almost seems to freeze. There's no question that this is the boy they came to find, but for now, finding answers is the last thing on Altair's mind. There's something not right about four grown men threatening a child.
"Altair-" Ezio says, but Altair isn't listening. He's concentrating on something else.
There are times when the apple can be frustratingly difficult to work with. Unresponsive. Rough. And then there are times where it's almost frightening, how well he can work with it. The day he killed Al Mualim was one of those times. And so is this moment.
He doesn't think twice- it's a snap decision, to help this boy, and under any other circumstances it wouldn't have worked. But for some reason, everything works this time, and no sooner has he decided what to do than the apple roars to life, responding to his thoughts and needs.
"Altair!" Ezio yells, but it's too late. Between one blink and the next, he's out of his body and inside the head of the child-
Ratonhnhaké:ton -
in control, but only just, and there's a whole storm of confusion coming from the kid, but Altair blocks it out.
All this happens in one single, frozen moment. And then one of the men swings for Altair with the butt of a rifle, and years of instincts kick in. He's not stupid; he knows he's just put himself in the body of a very small, very frightened child, who barely comes up to the waist of the shortest of the four men.
So he doesn't fight back, just ducks out of the way so the musket slams into the ground next to his head. The man frowns and pulls back to swing again, but before he can-
"Come on," Lee snaps. He's already turned away, isn't even paying attention as his friend tries to murder a child. The man shrugs and joins in the group as they walk away, having- so they assume- made their point.
Ratonhnhaké:ton doesn't take long to get over the shock of having someone else in his brain. Maybe its because he's a child that he barely stops to question it- by the time the men are out of sight among the trees, he's shouting at Altair, half in words and half in pure emotion, terror and panic and suddenly there's the scent of smoke in the air.
Altair runs. Ratonhnhaké:ton's mind is open to him, and he reads his memories as he goes. By the time he comes to Ratonhnhaké:ton's village, he understands the fear burning through the boy's mind.
"Please," Ratonhnhaké:ton says, and Altair can feel the desperation in the word. "Find my mother."
The air is thick with smoke, and nearly fire roars from all around, but Altair has been through flames before. He's seen a lot that Ratonhnhaké:ton hasn't, and he knows what to do. He's never seen this village before, but Ratonhnhaké:ton is familiar with it- to him, it's home, and Altair uses his knowledge to find Ratonhnhaké:ton's mother, trapped between a half burned building and a fallen in roof.
He feels surprisingly calm, so calm it almost surprises himself. But he's been through worse situations, and even Ratonhnhaké:ton's panic doesn't manage to pierce his calm. Because he knows the only way this woman is getting out of here is if he manages not to panic.
The wood pinning her down is too heavy for him to shift as he is now, and she's injured, and in a bad position anyway. But it's not a question of force, it's a question of where to apply that force. A child wouldn't know that. Altair does.
Still, they barely make it out before the whole structure collapses behind them, and Altair has to admit- he's lucky.
It's a very long time- several hours- before Altair finds himself alone again. Ratonhnhaké:ton has somehow managed to fall asleep inside his own head, and Altair is sitting against the wall of one of the few unburnt buildings in the village, trying to sort out for himself why (and how- he's not sure it's something he'll be able to do again any time soon) he risked everything to help this child. The best answer he can come up with isn't an answer at all- it's just the memory of Ratonhnhaké:ton looking past Lee, straight at him, wordlessly asking for help.
But he's helped all he can- for now, anyway. He's not sure where the plan he and Ezio came up with stands now- Ratonhnhaké:ton may be Haytham's son, but it doesn't seem likely that he'll have any information about the key. And anyway, Altair's been inside his head for the past several hours. The whole point of coming themselves instead of letting Desmond do it inside the animus was to keep him from finding out about the time travel and the body sharing.
Their best hope, Altair decides, is that Ratonhnhaké:ton is too young to understand or remember. But the longer he stays, the less chance there is of that happening. So he slips quietly back into his own body, letting Ratonhnhaké:ton drop gently to the ground, still sleeping more or less peacefully. Altair is sure he'll have nightmares for a while, but they could have been worse- they could have been his mother's death.
There's no more he can do to help- so instead he leaves to find Ezio and take them out of the eighteenth century.
-/-
Okay, yea, I didn't let Ziio die in this story. It's probably going to come back to bite me at some point, but... ah well. I'm kind of curious to find out what happens. (Because seriously, I have no idea. It's not like the characters ever listen to me). So yea, I guess tune in next time to see if/how this changes things?
Also- chapter fifty. :O I was not expecting this story to get so long or for people to actually read it. So thanks to everyone that left the 89 reviews (good, bad, at least you cared enough to say something, so thanks either way), the 47 people that fav'd and the 46 people that put the story on alert. You guys are cool.