Over 20 Things Not To Do in The Italian Renaissance

Chapter One

I was having a rather average day, which honestly should have tipped me off.

I'm the sort of person who never has average days, really- it's always a bad one or a good one. Either something goes wrong and I start swearing like a trucker or something actually goes right and I begin to sing praises to God and all his angels.

But today was...oddly normal. I woke up, checked my phone, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and applied my makeup without only several minor hiccups to my routine. Which was the first sign that something wasn't quite right. Typically, I would have dropped my favourite tinted-lip balm into the (wet and soapy) sink or accidentally smudged my eyeliner all the way up to my eyebrow. But no, nothing drastically went wrong.

Next step: leaving the house. I grabbed my lunch, my backpack, made sure I had my house key and my phone and then locked the door behind me, turning to walk down the driveway and begin the first few steps to my school. On a good day, I wouldn't have tripped at all. On a bad day, I would have fallen face-first into the slush that was trying to obstruct my path. But today I just slid a step or two, skidded once and nearly walked into a tree branch.

And then came school itself. It was always one way or the other: my teachers either graded my homework exceeding well and my large group of friends was getting along with no arguments whatsoever or I got a shameful fifty-seven percent on an essay I had worked hard on and all my friends were busy with not speaking to each other. Today, however, I received a low B+ on a pop quiz, and while my best friend Alina reported that everything was alright between the other girls, they were all remarkably subdued.

It was weird, and kind of unnerving.

But I shrugged it off- after all, life is sometimes strange once in a while- and left school after the final bell rang with a sort of bemused sense of accomplishment. I had survived a day at Vancouver Academy High School with no major events, good or bad.

And just when I thought my day would stay bland and unassuming, it got worse. Naturally.

I stepped out onto the street when the light turned green, (as per usual) expecting to reach the other side of the road like I always did, safely and in one piece.

But apparently life decided it wanted to throw me a curveball- or more accurately, a whole fucking semi truck.

How I didn't see the massive vehicle swerve too sharply and subsequently flip on its axis, I will wonder to this day.

And since I didn't see it happen, I could only turn and stare in frozen horror at the massive vehicle that came crashing towards me. The last thing I saw before everything went black was the dull grey sky, the kind of sky that still hasn't made up its mind about being sunny or rainy.

How fucking fitting, I thought then, with a rather surprising burst of morbid amusement. That the last thing I see is on this average day is a perfectly average, boring, unassuming Vancouver sky.

I woke up.

This was understandably confusing for me, as the last thing that I remembered was inappropriate death humour and the crushing pain of something that was twenty times bigger than me slamming into my body.

When I hesitantly attempted to right myself, I found that I could move without any difficulty, and that not a single part of me was injured. I scrambled to my feet when I realized that I wasn't in a staggering amount of pain, and hurriedly began checking my limbs for bruises or breaks.

I rotated my wrists and ankles multiple times, straightened out my spine until it cracked, bounced up and down on the balls of my feet and wriggled my fingers and toes.

Nothing.

Not even a single twinge of pain.

Huh.

It was only after I assured myself that I hadn't sustained hideous injuries that I bothered to look around me. What I saw behind me made me stumble backwards so abruptly that I landed on my rear and yelped out a shocked,

"Holy shit!"

My voice sounded obscenely loud in the silence, and the glowing woman floating in front of me frowned in disapproval.

"I will never understand you mortals." She said imperiously, her impressive brows furrowed. "Feces is not revered amongst your people, and yet you all use this phrase that implies that it is."

"It's not...erm...Ma'am." I managed after several long moments of silence, picking myself up off the floor. Everything else around us was pitch black, so dark I could not see a thing beyond several feet. Not like there was much to see, anyways. It was like being in a black, marble cube- everything seemed to have the same texture, the same feel to it. The only spot of light was the glowing being currently gazing down at me with a sort of stern expression of annoyance.

"It is just an expression of shock, then. How crude." she sniffed, her chiseled features flashing with haughty derision.

"...Yes. Crude. Thank you." I said slowly, eyeing her warily. The woman looked as though she had just floated her way out of some weird sci-fi movie where the aliens where based on the ancient greeks. Flowing robes, check. Elaborate headdress, check. Proud expression of arrogant superiority due to a wealth of knowledge, check. Glowing with a silvery light that was almost blinding, also check.

I scrounged up what remained of my self-composure and turned to focus entirely on her face, trying to ignore the way my eyes began to water.

"Would you mind explaining what the hell is going on?" I was very proud of the fact that my voice barely shook. "I'm supposed to be dead."

She heaved a large sigh and crossed her arms, causing her elegant robes to flutter and shift about her form in an effortlessly graceful way.

I was not jealous in the least, no. Not at all.

"You are." She said finally, with a slight incline of her head. "You ought to have passed from this realm and into the next, child. But I have other plans."

Well, that didn't sound ominous at all.

"I'm sorry," I spluttered incredulously. "But who exactly are you to have stopped me from...passing on or some shit? Last I checked, God wasn't female!"

The woman shot me a peeved glare and huffed irritably. "You mortals. Always clinging to your ridiculous concepts of a god. Now, we do not have much time, so I will make this quick."

"Time for what?" I said bewilderedly. "Make what quick?"

"Be quiet, girl." She thundered, and for a moment, seemed to glow even brighter. My jaw snapped shut so fast that the 'click' of my bones coming together rattled my teeth.

"I am Minerva. You are my chosen chalice. I give to you this power, and you will fix what has been broken. You must be careful, for changing the fates design is not an easy thing, nor is it without its difficulties."

Throughout her speech I stared at her with increasing confusion and anger, but unable to speak. When she finished, she beckoned me closer with a single, slender hand. "Come here, child."

Seemingly against my will, my feet began to drag me forwards until I was nearly blinded by the light she emitted. I was close enough that I could have counted her eyelashes. And then, without any further ado, she reached forward and clamped her left hand around the back of my neck, and pressed the palm of her right hand to my forehead.

Incapable of moving, I could only watch helplessly as she came even closer, so close that I had to close my eyes or risk going blind from the glare of the light.

And then there was nothing but pain, unending pain that burned its way through my veins and seared the inside of my skull, pain that curled low in my gut and then unfurled throughout my limbs, anchoring itself to my bones. A pain that felt like fire and ice exploding through me all at once, a pain that finally receded from my body only to center at the base of my skull and slowly turn into a low, persistent throbbing.

When the pain finally stopped, I realized that my throat was sore from screaming, and that blood dripped from my nose. At one point Minerva had let go, and without her to support me I had fallen to my knees, arms that were wracked with aftershocks and remembered pain only barely keeping me from kissing the ground. With slow, jerky movements and unsteady limbs I managed to slump onto my side, curling up and wrapping my trembling arms around my knees.

With a shaky hand, I reached up to wipe at my upper lip. My fingers came away sticky with my own blood.

"W-what did you do t-t-to m-me?" I managed to croak out, blindly turning my head upwards to face the ever-present light, but receiving no response. "Minerva? Minerva!"

I coughed harshly, my body convulsing with the force of it. A warm liquid came up with the cough, leaving my throat feeling scraped and raw. I knew without needing to see that I was hacking up blood.

With what felt like a huge amount of effort, I cracked open a single eye. The light was still there. But Minerva was not.

The throbbing in the back of my head felt like it was only getting worse, pounding at the inside of my skull until I felt like it would explode out of my brain.

"Miinerrvaaa..." I slurred, dizzily trying to roll onto my knees with no success.

"Be still, my chalice."

Instantly, I obeyed, ceasing my efforts to right myself. I turned my head this way and that, trying to discern the source of the sound.

And then I was forced to bite back a scream, because the hammering in my head seemed to spread down to my limbs, causing them to stiffen up and feel heavier than lead. Was it only going to keep getting worse? I wouldn't be able to handle much more of this if it did.

"...help. Me." I whimpered after what felt like hours, my head lolling on the ground. There was something wet underneath me. I coughed again, and a fine spray of blood erupted from my mouth, misting over my face and neck. I desperately tried to prop myself up on my side when it felt like there would be more- and sure enough, this time I heaved up what little had remained in my stomach and several more globs of blood. "Min-min-erva." I gurgled, unbidden tears sliding down my face, mingling with the blood. Why wasn't she helping me? She did this to me. Where was she?

"Hush, my chalice. I cannot help you- but they will."

I tried to choke out a question- they? Where was she bringing me?

But all attempts at speaking were halted by the terrifying feeling of free-falling. I was too startled too scream, instead tumbling down, down, down without a sound.

"Mio dio! Che è successo?"

"Non sappiamo, signora! Degli uomini avessero trovata come questa e l'hanno portata qui!"

Voices. A lot of high, feminine voices. Couldn't they shut up? Didn't they know they were being too loud?

I wanted to recover from the shock of dying and then being tortured by a glowing floating lady in peace.

"Devono aver pensato che lei uno dei nostri ragazze."

"Beh, potrebbe essere abbastanza carina. Ai sensi tutto quel sangue, è difficile da raccontare."

Could they not see that I was busy dying here?

"Adelina, ottenere uno straccio. Marina, ottenere un mastello. Abbiamo bisogno di liberarsi del sangue."

"Eurgh."

Wait...was that Italian? Why weren't they speaking English? The more I listened, the more confused I became. Where was I? What was going on?

Without even opening my eyes I could tell that something was wrong. Whatever I was lying on was too hard to be a bed, so it must have been a table of some sort. Soft, warm hands were touching me, smoothing away my hair from my face and tugging off my surely blood-soaked clothes. Yet another pair of hands were wiping at my face with a rough cloth, and the smell of sweat and the coppery tang of blood filled the air.

But where was the noise? Where was the hum of the electricity, the distant rumbling of car engines, the cool breeze of air conditioning?

Where all these sounds should have been, there was silence. The room was quiet save for the noises made by those tending to me, and I couldn't even summon the strength to open my eyes.

Scratch that, I had enough strength left in me to suddenly roll onto my side and cough up more blood. Judging by the startled cries and exclamations of those in the room, this was probably the first sign of life they'd had from me. I managed to turn myself enough that I could get my elbows braced on the hard wooden surface beneath me, with my chest facing down(so I was right about it being a table), allowing me to throw up even more blood.

"Hnngh." I groaned weakly, what little strength I had left sapped with even that minimal effort. I felt hands tentatively push at my shoulder, then push again when I allowed myself to slump fully back down onto the table. "Urrgh," was the only thing I managed, and the hands froze briefly, but continued on to rearrange my body on the tabletop.

"Shh, ragazza. Shh."

Italian again. With every last shred of will-power I had left, I summoned the remaining vestiges of life within my body and opened my eyes. It was a woman tending to me, and a beautiful one at that. She was exquisite- long black hair pinned back elaborately, smooth olive skin and sharp, chiseled features curved into a worried frown.

She gasped when she glimpsed my opened eyes, and then offered me a bright smile that did nothing to hide the concern lurking in her own gaze.

"Silenzio ora, tesora. Ti aiutiamo noi."

I didn't know what she said, but nonetheless I trusted that beautiful smile explicitly. Under the reassuring eyes of one of the most lovely women I'd ever laid eyes on, I finally surrendered to the call of oblivion.

Second Rule: Don't fucking trust floating women in white.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I would like to thank those who have favourited this story, but also add that I DO NOT OWN ASSASSIN'S CREED. I'm just screwing around with their characters. Also, this will be sporadically updated. Reviews are very, very greatly appreciated- I'm not even asking for a full sentence, just a simple "Bro this was good" will suffice. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! To those of you who speak Italian: please please let me know if I need to correct anything. I don't speak Italian, and I'm getting this all off of Google Translate. This is written without a beta, so please have mercy and feel free to point out any mistakes.