Hello everyone, I'm back! It's been a hectic year all the way around. I left my job of 4 years to work at another facility, then after six months, got another job offer, this one much closer to home so I took it. And my grandfather passed away last month. He had been dealing with cancer for almost two years, but we didn't know until it was too late. He refused the radiation, and decided to spend his last days at home. My one comfort is that when he passed away, he was home surrounded by his wife and children who loved him, and I have no doubt he's up in heaven playing games with the other Angels. Requiescat in Pace Pappy. I love you.
He loved history, so in memory of him, this chapter is about the aftermath of the chase along with several history lessons. Enjoy!
Chapter 17
Helen had difficulty keeping her eyes from rolling as Cesare Borgia threw the chet into the wall with a furious roar. Jewels that would have been priceless to the living, but were useless to the dead were scattered everywhere. Honestly, Helen thought, no wonder they called Cesare the Whiner.
They were all hidden inside a warehouse where old and abandoned ferries were kept. The glow from the River Styx where the ferries floated was their only light. Cesare had come in, gloating about how he had bested his adversary Ezio Auditore and his family until he had opened de Sadé's chest to find that the Dream Tokens had been replaced by jewels used as decoration at the Lucky Star. Helen wanted to laugh at the irony. The Captain General of Italia's armies, who had fooled and slaughtered his enemies, had been tricked by a thirteen-year-old. Helen had to admit that she was impressed. It was a trick worthy of Odysseus.
"Those bastardi!" Cesare screamed. "They think they can trick me and get away with it?! I will hang them over Lucifer's pits and laugh as his demons rip them apart again and again!"
"Cesare!" Rodrigo scolded his son, his eyes darting fearfully towards Cain who had been quiet during Cesare's tantrum.
Cesare gulped, quickly composing himself as he bowed toward the senior ghost. "For-Forgive me, Lord Cain. I will retrieve those tokens for you if it's the last thing I do."
Cain raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "You mistake my intention, Cesare."
He walked over to the edge of the pier, looking down at the souls trapped in the River Styx with an air of indifference. "I sent you after the Miles Clan not to retrieve the tokens, or even kill the boy Desmond. I sent you after them to hinder their mission."
"M-My Lord?" Cesare stuttered, obviously not expecting Cain's words.
Cain turned back to him and his audience with narrowed eyes. "Can anyone tell me why I have been sending you all after the Miles Family? Why not just hide and wait for the third sunrise to come? Why bother capturing a living boy already on the cusp of dying?"
Nobody answered, whether that was because of ignorance or fear was Helen's guess. Even Cesare didn't speak up, seemingly stumped by Cain's questions.
If the lack of answers bothered Cain, he didn't show it. Instead he took out the Orb of Eden, and held it out towards them. There was a slight glow to it, very different from the last time Helen had laid eyes on it. The glow grew brighter and brighter, until Helen realized she couldn't look away if she wanted to. In fact, she couldn't move her ghostly form at all. From the corner of her eyes she could see all the other ghosts frozen just like her, terror evident in their eyes. Her focus returned to Cain as he circled Cesare.
"Did you know that the Orb of Eden was created by an Isu named Osiris? Oh sure, the Orb itself was rumored to be created by the Isu scientist Juno in an attempt to bring back her dead husband Aita, but it was Osiris who came up with the idea. He and his brother Set were men obsessed with death and the power to control it. When they neared the completion of their project, Set murdered him to complete the ultimate test of the Orb's power. Osiris' wife attempted to bring him back, but the test failed. Osiris's son Horus and many of their family considered their ideas to be… unnatural. When Set sought to perfect the Orb's errors, Horus killed him and destroyed all his work, but not before he shared his discoveries to his closest pupil."
Juno, Helen realized, dread beginning to fill her stomach as she fought in vain to try and move.
Cain continued on with his tale. "Although the Orb is made from material different from Apples of Eden, it contains many of their attributes such as control of your minds. However, the Orb does have its own failsafes such as the living being able to withstand its control."
That's when Helen began to realize Cain's plan.
"The Miles Family are well-known for their successes in finding and killing their targets. It's inevitable that they will find us, but it all depends on when."
Cain then leaned into Cesare's ear, too low for Helen or any other ghost to hear. Then Cesare began to walk forward, not stopping even as he reached the edge before the green water of the Styx. All of a sudden, she felt control of her ghostly form return, and so did everybody else, including Cesare. He yelled, his arms flailing as he struggled to maintain his balance at the very edge, but it was all in vain. Cesare screamed as he fell forward into the River Styx with a splash.
Helen's hands flew to her ears, her eyes shut, but it was not enough to block out the smell of acid and the screams of the trapped ghosts as they vainly fought the river's imprisonment over them. When she finally dared to open her eyes, she could see everyone in a similar position. Cesare's father Rodrigo, who he had murdered in life, stared at the spot his son had been in just a minute ago, mouth agape in shock. The most disturbing of all was Cainwho looked indifferent as if he had simply tossed a stone into the water, and not just condemned a soul into the worst kind of imprisonment.
He turned to face the, and Helen could feel everybody straighten up, not wanting to meet the same fate as Cesare.
"There can be no mistakes. We have a stage to set up."
000{{*}}000
Jacob tried not to feel annoyed as they watched and waited for de Sadé to finish counting all the Dream Tokens they, or rather Desmond had managed to retrieve.
After the last time, nobody wanted a repeat of bringing Desmond through Sinful Bliss even while blindfolded. They were lucky de Sadé had agreed to meet them on one of his private balconies, and away from any… daring and adventurous lovers.
Finally, de Sadé finished counting and seemed satisfied, sweeping all the Dream Tokens into a chest and locking it.
Jacob had to admit, he had been resisting the urge to slip a few tokens while they made their way back. He would have loved to slip into his descendant Elizabeth's dreams to reassure her that everything was going to be alright. He would have loved to check on his other descendants through his son Harry's line. Or perhaps let Evie visit her own. His poor sister who lost her husband early, then forced to watch all three of her children die so young: her twins poisoned by a traitor while they weren't even old enough to carry a blade, and her firstborn through the same method that took their own mother by childbirth. But Jacob had resisted the temptation, not wanting to risk de Sadé not helping them due to being a few tokens short.
"A deal is a deal," de Sade told them, satisfied with the results. "It took a lot of word of mouth, and a lot of prodding, but I found a girl Cain had seen a while ago. A little prickly and self-conscious, so try not to stare. After all, she's one of my best hostesses."
He turned towards the French doors leading into the Sinful Bliss. "Come on out, my dear Blanche."
From the shadows came a woman who, contrary to her name, wore dark silk Jacob recognized from the Great War period with gloves that nearly reached her shoulders, and her dark hair flowing down her waist in a waterfall of curls. The real eye-catcher however was her mask. It covered most of her face, leaving her eyes, mouth, and chin exposed, and yet the craftsmanship of thin fabric and gemstones gave off the illusion of mystery from her.
De Sadé grinned. "I shall leave you all to your talks and hunt. Good luck." With a flourish, de Sadé left his girl with the family of Assassins and Templars.
The girl- woman actually- Jacob corrected in his mind, had her arms crossed and eyes narrowed as she met their gazes. She reminded Jacob of Nellie and the other unfortunate women he and his wife Elena had helped while he was alive. Women who had been abused because of their circumstances, and made them build up a wall to protect themselves.
Ezio broke the silence, speaking kindly to the woman. "Can you tell us about Cain?"
"I might," Blanch admitted.
"Are you even certain you've seen Cain?" Haytham questioned in a tone that made Jacob want to punch him in the face.
From the look in her eyes, it seemed Blanche shared the thought. "I'm certain."
She untied the ribbon holding her mask up and revealed her face underneath.
It took everything in Jacob not to react, and he could sense the same from his family members. Desmond, however, had nowhere near the skill set of covering his emotions, and therefore couldn't help the gasp of horror that escaped him. When he died, most of Jacob's scars and old injuries faded away, like his left eye Jack had destroyed. The same could be said for many of his family members. Some scars remained like the one on the left side of his jaw and the one on his right eyebrow. The Angels never gave them an explanation as to why that is, and Jacob had learned to accept it. Yet when Jacob looked upon the scars on Blanche's face, he knew she had not obtained them while she had been living.
The scars on her face resembled very severe burns, some going so far as to reveal bits of bone on what was once living flesh. There was only one thing on the Other Side that could burn a ghost like that: the acid water from the River Styx.
"As you can see, Cain's not the most gentle lover." Blanche motioned to her face. "When I first saw him, it was a couple of years after my death. He gave me a bag of Dream Tokens and had his way with me. He was rough the first time, but nowhere near as rough as the ones who killed me."
"First? You mean you saw him again after he did that?" Desmond asked in horror.
Jacob cringed. This was not the way he would have shown Desmond this horrible side of life. Young Desmond did not know the evil side to life yet.
Blanche looked angrily at Desmond. "This," She pointed to her face. "Wasn't done on the first night, but the third and last time I saw him. I lived during the Great War. When my husband died, I had to become a prostitute to feed my infant daughter, until my fellow French patriots had me gang raped and murdered for sleeping with the enemy, even if we were starving. I needed the Dream Tokens to see my daughter and reassure her that I loved her and didn't abandon her!"
Desmond looked taken aback, his expression morphing into guilt and pity. Although Desmond had claimed to know what sex was, he had probably never considered the concept of rape Jacob realized. Although he didn't like her lashing out at Desmond's ignorance, Jacob couldn't help but sympathize with her situation. He placed a hand on Desmond's shoulders and narrowed his eyes with Blanche's.
She seemed to understand what he was trying to communicate with her because she sighed and looked apologetic. "He became more and more aggressive each time he visited me. Then on the third night it was… it was like something snapped in him. He was like… more than a beast… a monster or a demon hellbent on destroying and making people suffer. If I had been alive, I probably would have died six or seven times before he did this to my face."
Everyone was silent, the horror of Blanche's story ringing through them. When Jacob had been young, he remembered helping Elena to protect the unfortunate women in Devil's Acre. One of the things he loved about his wife was that she never judged "her girls" for their chosen profession, and had no problem beating up and teaching lessons to clients who wanted it very rough. Jacob remembered one girl, Charlotte who had just turned sixteen, found in bed with her fingers and toes broken before she had been strangled to death. Her client was a rich boy who claimed their "game" had gone out of hand. Jacob remembered seeing red and the next thing he knew, he was being pulled off of him by Evie and Abberline, his knuckles bruised and battered, and the rich boy's face a bloody mess, it had been a bloody miracle he had survived. When the boy's father threatened to get back at Jacob and the girls… Jacob had never been as pleased when he saw his wife hold a knife to his manhood, and whisper a threat that made the sod wet himself. Jacob hated it when innocent people were tortured to death, but this… this was the deepest depravity his worst nightmares could ever conjure.
The one who dared to speak up was Amunet. "Do you know what set him off?"
Blanche frowned as she tried to remember. "Bits and pieces. When my form wasn't too busy trying to recover, I do recall him saying something like 'that fucking bitch Mnemosyne,' and not knowing what she was talking about."
"Mnemosyne?" Evie asked. "You mean the goddess of prophecy?"
Blanche nodded. "That sounds right."
"How long ago was it?" Ezio asked.
"Thirteen, maybe fourteen years ago," Blanche answered. "Based on what I heard in his visits, it seemed like he visited her garden a lot over the years."
Thirteen or fourteen years ago.
Jacob tried to rack up any important events in that time, but nothing hit him. He looked to his fellow family members, and saw Altair, Ezio, Connor, Bayek, and Amunet's eyes widen in realization. They knew, but didn't share their information, or at least they wouldn't in front of Blanche.
"Is there anything else you can tell us?" His great-grandfather asked.
Blanche shook her head. "No. That bit about Mnemosyne was the closest personal information he shared. Nothing else."
She looked at them with steel eyes. "Promise me when you find him: don't hand him over to the Angels, throw him in the Styx."
Jacob and his whole family nodded.
Based on everything they knew and heard about Cain, if there was one soul who deserved the eternal torment of the River Styx, it was Cain.
They thanked Blanche for the information she shared with them, and began to take their leave when Desmond stopped them.
"Wait!"
The living boy turned back to Blanche who was preparing to put her mask back on. She paused when she felt Desond's eyes on her, and met his gaze. Desmond hesitated for a second before he reached down and took his left shoe off. He retrieved the two Dream Tokens Jacob had given him, and held them out to her. The scarred woman looked at him surprised, as did the entire Miles Clan.
"Here. so you can see your daughter again," Desmond offered.
Just like that, Jacob felt his heart melt with pride and love for his descendant's kindness. Perhaps he should be upset with Desmond for giving away a gift Jacob had tried to give him, but he didn't care. Even after a century, it still surprised him how kind and innocent children could be even the ones who came from a "vicious, murderous" family like the Miles Clan.
Blanche kept looking at Desmond, still shocked as if she couldn't believe anyone would offer such a kind gesture to her.
Desmond's cheeks began to redden as the awkwardness of the moment grew, and he grabbed Blanche's spare hand before placing the tokens in them. That finally shook the woman out of her shock, and she tried to return the tokens, but Desmond refused with a stubbornness that could only have come from his family. The woman's features softened, and her scars didn't look as grotesque as they first did.
Blanche thanked Desmond, and turned back to the Miles Clan. "You make sure he makes it home."
With that, she put her mask back on and disappeared inside the Sinful Bliss.
000{{*}}000
After leaving the Sinful Bliss, Desmond followed his ancestors onto a tram. It was kind of a mix between a train and a bus in Desmond's opinion, but instead of traveling on the ground, it traveled up and sideways several stories high. Some ghost even sat on the ledge, swinging their legs out like several of his ancestors were currently doing.
"So this will take us to see Mnemosyne?" Desmond asked as he watched the city of the Other Side pass them.
"It will take us as close as the garden where she dwells," Amunet answered him. "Access to her is restricted."
"Fortunately, we all have experience in sneaking into restricted areas," Evie said from beside Desmond.
Desmond glanced up at her, and when he saw the soft look in her eyes, he couldn't help but think of how she reminded him of his mother.
"That was a very kind thing you did, Desmond."
"What? You mean the Dream Tokens?"
Desmond couldn't explain what made him give up the Dream Tokens other than him wanting to do something for Blanche. Her story had shaken him to the core. Growing up, he had been told of the cruelty in the outside world by his parents as well as the many other adults on the Farm. However, hearing stories, and seeing the actual results were entirely two different things. In his thirteen years, Desmond had never imagined the kind of scars he saw on Blanche's face. Then as he listened to her story, Desmond had felt compassion for her and wanted to do something as a way of thanking her. The Dream Tokens had felt heavy in his possession. He wanted to talk to his parents and maybe be held by them even if it would only be in a dream; and yet when he learned about Blanche's daughter and heard the longing to see her that she endured torture by Cain just to see her in dreams had moved Desmond. So he gave the Dream Tokens to Blanche. Besides if things went according to plan, Desmond would be back home within a day.
Desmond shrugged, trying to play it off. "It was nothing. I hope she's able to see her daughter again."
He looked at his ancestors curiously. "None of you guys had Dream Tokens when we set out to get de Sade's chest. Who have you guys gone to see in this century?"
His ancestors seemed tense for a moment before they began to explain. A few of them like Altair and Ezio, and Haytham and Shay would be drawn by members of their respected orders, those who had studied their stories and craved for their guidance which surprised Desmond. He had no idea that they were that famous. With Bayek and Amunet, their names had begun to fade into myth after so long, but were still called upon even unknowingly. However, everyone agreed that they preferred to visit their descendants' dreams. That's when Desmond realized he had many distant cousins.
"Are…" He began to ask hesitantly. "Are any of them like me?"
His ancestors looked at him confused.
"What do you mean?" asked Connor.
Desmond struggled to explain. "I don't know… different, I guess. Have… What do you guys call it? Eagle Vision?"
His ancestors were silent, trying to think.
"Some do," Ezio admitted.
"But with all the wars in this past century, there have been very few who do, and with many of our records on Eagle Vision destroyed even fewer know how to use it," Altair added in. "Why do you ask?"
Desmond looked down at his arms resting on the railing, running a hand over his hidden blade armband. "I don't know. I guess… I was hoping… that if I had more family who's like me, I wouldn't feel so alone. People try to hide it, but I know everyone on the Farm thinks I'm a freak. My own parents don't understand."
It was one of the reasons why he felt like such an outcast, why he wanted to run away. He saw how everyone in their small community interacted with one another, their families especially. He would envy many kids' closeness towards their parents and siblings, and wish he could be close to his parents. Everyone in his mother's family, or at least, her closest relations were dead, and on his father's side, Desmond knew his grandfather had siblings who had children themselves, but his father made no mention of them at all. He thought that maybe if he had cousins, even if distant, he could interact and play with them. How nice that would be.
He felt a hand on his chin, lifting his face up. His eyes met Amunet's. Her golden eyes were firm, but Desmond saw compassion in them.
"You are not a freak, Desmond. Don't ever think that!"
He looked around and saw all his ancestors from Altair to Haytham nod firmly, agreeing with Amunet. For a moment, Desmond couldn't speak, his throat tightening, his eyes burning with the threat of tears as emotion tried to escape him.
"Then… Then why am I like this? Why is this happening? When Uncle Gavin brought the Orb of Eden to the Farm, nothing happened. At least…" Desmond paused, trying to remember that night. How the Orb had seemed like an ordinary crystal ball until he leaned closer to get a better look at it.
"At least?" Altair gently prodded.
Desmond could see all the curious stares from his ancestors, making him realize that none of them had been there to witness the strange event that had started this whole fiasco. Desmond took a deep breath. "At least not until I crept closer, and the ball started glowing in Dr. Anderson's hands. Then I kept hearing this voice-"
"What voice?" Bayek interrupted, as he looked at Desmond with worried concern.
"This… voice!" Desmond told him, unsure how to describe it. "It kept calling my name. Telling me to join them. 'Join us Desmond.' And then when I was trying to run away, I kept hearing it in the barn."
As he described where he had been, and how he had reached the Orb, Desmond observed his ancestor's expression. They all kept their faces blank, but the subtle glances with one another alerted Desmond to the fact that his words disturbed them.
"It called to you?" Bayek asked.
Desmond nodded. "Yeah, but why me? Why not one of my parents?"
Bayek and Amunet shared a look before they motioned Desmond and everyone else to sit down, the City of the Other Side passing by the car's view.
"You all should know how Bayek and I came upon such an artifact all those years ago," Amunet began. "After Cleopatra's death, the Romans conquered Egypt. The people felt lost and hopeless. There was a group of rebels, extremists who plotted to place her children Helios and Selene on the throne…"
Amunet told them how when her new apprentice Caesarion, now going by the name Madu, heard about his siblings' survival, he had begged her to let him save them, fearing what Octavion would do to them should word of the rebels' plot reach his ears. Enlisting the aid of Bayek, and one of his own disciples, Bennu, they had scoured the land of Egypt, hoping to find the twins and their younger brother Ptolemy before the Romans did. They tracked the children and the rebels to the ancient ruins of the Valley of the Kings. There they discovered the rebels were led by a priest of Anubis who possessed the Orb of Eden. The priest had believed the Orb would resurrect the great army of Egypt and the most powerful and wise pharaohs who would restore her to glory, and at the cost of the childrens' lives. With great difficulty, Amunet and Bayek fought through the priest's followers and the ghosts he had summoned before killing him while Madu and Bennu rescued the children. After defeating the priest and the rebels, came the hard decisions. The Orb had allowed them to be reunited with their lost loved ones: Madu and his siblings with their parents, Bennu with her foster mother, and Amunet and Bayek with their son Khemu.
"Wait! Foster mother? You mean, you and Bayek didn't raise Bennu?" Desmond interrupted, remembering the name Bennu listed among his ancestors.
The tension in the car was suddenly so thick, nobody dared to make a sound. Desmond was beginning to regret his question when Amunet answered. "No. When our son Khemu was murdered, I discovered I was pregnant."
Even after she became Amunet, the memories of Aya were nearly impossible to destroy. She could remember those terrible days after Khemu's death. Bayek had set out to hunt down the men responsible while Aya had returned to Alexandria, and threw herself into her studies and making connections. Some days were so hard that she struggled to even rise from her bed. Then she discovered that she was pregnant. It was like a spark of hope had reached her. She remembered how much Khemu had wanted a little sister so she would never be alone while he was away. She had taken it as a sign that Khemu had pleaded with the Gods to ensure his parents wouldn't be alone upon his death. She took better care of herself, eating and exercising, but not straining herself to ensure that she and the baby would be healthy and strong. She waited to hear word from Bayek, hoping to share this wonderful news. Until one day as she was helping her cousin in the Library of Alexandria, she felt a pain unlike anything she had ever felt in her abdomen, not even when she gave birth to Khemu.
"Childbirth… is a very different battlefield, especially back in those days," Amunet explained to a wide-eyed Desmond. "For two days I was in and out of consciousness from the pain."
She had lost so much blood, the midwives had feared she and the baby would perish. Amunet could remember in her cloud of pain praying to Isis, to Khemu, to anyone who could hear to let her baby live, to not take another of her children again. Somehow, Amunet couldn't remember, she had pushed the baby out, and in the haze she recalled hearing the baby cry out before she passed out. Her next battle had been childbirth fever, and when she finally overcame it, she woke up to the sad and relieved faces of the midwives caring for her. But where was her baby?
"They told me she was born wrong, that she didn't make it, but I swore that I had heard her cry when she was born. It was like Khemu's: strong and fierce despite the odds. But they said I had imagined it in my labors. They never even let me see her or hold her, said that I had been ill for so long they had sent her to be prepared for the next life and laid to rest with her brother."
For a moment, everyone was silent. So silent it told Desmond that perhaps nobody had heard this story of Amunet. He felt speechless, unable to comprehend the pain and loss this fierce woman had faced along with her husband who held her hand and looked upon her with such sadness and guilt in his eyes.
The only one brave enough to break the silence was Altair. "But the midwives lied, didn't they?"
Amunet nodded, her expression becoming fierce once again. "Yes, they did. One of them was part of the Order of the Ancients sent to keep an eye on me. The Order suspected my "hidden talents" and with the knowledge of Bayek's long lineage of Medjai, they were interested in our child."
"They planned on turning her into a weapon!" Bayek spat, his fists clenched.
A thought occurred to Desmond. "But how did she find you then?"
Had the Order of the Ancients sent Bennu out to kill her own parents?
"By accident, or an act of Fate perhaps," Bayek explained. "The midwife who stole her placed her in the care of her sister to be raised until she could be trained, but she died. Another casualty in the war to overthrow King Ptolemy XIII and place his sister Cleopatra on the throne. Bennu would have been six years old."
Lost in the chaos of war, Bennu became another war orphan, surviving the streets, stealing, pickpocketing, and fighting to survive. One day, Bennu made the mistake of pickpocketing the wrong person: a friend of Bayek's. When Bayek saw the act, he chased after her.
"I must have chased her halfway through Alexandria before I finally caught her," Bayek said, a hint of pride in his voice.
And caught her he did between several thugs hoping to rob her. Bennu had a knife she used for protection and was very quick on her feet, but she was severely outnumbered. Bayek stepped in, and helped her make quick work of her attackers. Bayek couldn't explain how he felt upon laying eyes on Bennu when the dust settled. Tired and bleeding, she nevertheless held herself defiantly as she faced him. It was like looking into a mirror of the past and seeing a young Aya back when they were young, and yet Bayek could see traces of his mother Ahmose like her inner strength and strong-will.
"And then you recruited her into the Assassins?" Desmond asked eagerly.
Bayek chuckled. "We were Hidden Ones back then, and no. not at the time. Bennu was fourteen and didn't trust anyone at that time, but that is a tale for another time. We were talking about the Orb of Eden."
"Oh yeah. Right!" Desmond's cheeks reddened in embarrassment. He had gotten swept up in the tale of Bayek and Amunet's daughter.
"So the Orb was how you discovered the truth about Bennu?" Shay asked.
Amunet answered him. "Yes, Bennu's foster mother had confessed out of guilt, having become disillusioned by watching the Order of the Ancients destroy Egypt. Khemu confirmed her words."
Neither Amunet nor Bayek shared how they and their newfound daughter had reacted to this revelation. Nobody in the family asked, and Desmond decided to follow their lead. Some things were better off privately hidden in the past.
The sons Cleopatra had with her lover Marc Antony had wanted to try and bring their parents back, but it was her daughter Selene, wise even at the tender age of ten, and their older brother, who saw the truth of his own father's lust for power, and their mother's desire for the peace of Egypt and the safety of her children, who persuaded Helios and Ptolemy to hand over the Orb to the Hidden Ones. Fearing Roman retribution on the people of Egypt, they had raced back to Alexandria only to be confronted by Octavian with his general Agrippa and foster brother Juba.
"So what happened?" Desmond asked eagerly.
Octavian had taken control of the Ancient Ones, succeeding his adopted father, but he recognized Madu as Caesarian, Caesar's biological son. A fight ensued, ending with Madu holding Octavian at knife point, and Juba holding Selene hostage. It was a stalemate.
"Negotiation was our only way out," Amunet explained. "The children were innocent, and killing Octavian would have brought devastating consequences to Egypt and Rome."
Madu, now wiser, spared Octavian's life and renounced his former identity as the son of Caesar and Pharaoh of Egypt as long as Octravian swore to uphold peace and safety, and to never harm his siblings in Rome. If he did not uphold his part, Madu would ensure Octavian suffered. Octavian, impressed by him, promised, and allowed the Hidden Ones to leave after Madu bade one last tearful goodbye to his siblings. Octavian kept his side of the bargain, until Ptolemy Philadelphus was poisoned by his sister Octavia years later. Helios found our bureau in Rome and joined our Creed when he turned fifteen. Selene spied for us, and brought Juba over to our side when they married, and made their Kingdom of Mauretania a haven for the Hidden Ones. As for Madu, upon Ptolemy's death, he fulfilled his promise by giving Octavian a poison that damaged his lungs and caused him to have respiratory problems for the rest of his life, and he and Helios assassinated Marcellus, Octavian's nephew when his power began to grow, and his sister Octavia to avenge little Ptolemy.
"In the meantime, we hid the Orb of Eden in a hidden vault like the one the Medjai would guard in Siwa. a friend of ours built a shop over it to hide it from anyone who would come looking for it," Bayek finished the tale.
The Miles Clan was silent, reeling from what Bayek and Amunet had told them.
Desmond spoke up. "I… I still don't know why the Orb called to me."
Altair was the one who answered him. "We all have experience interacting with Pieces of Eden. Some of the pieces like the Orb react to those with Isu blood in their veins."
"Isu?" Desmond asked perplexed. "You mean like Cain? But I look normal like everyone else. I don't have glowing veins or anything."
"No, but you have Eagle Vision, don't you?" Evie asked.
Desmond gaped, unsure how to respond.
Amunet explained. "The Isu were an advanced race who came to near extinction when a catastrophic event nearly destroyed the planet. To ensure their survival, Isu and human came together to rebuild and recover."
"So in other words: an Isu and a human did it and that's how we all came to be generations later?" Desmond asked.
His ancestors cringed at the wording.
"That's… one way to put it," Edward confirmed.
"So the Orb responded to my blood or DNA? But why not my mom or dad?"
"Genetics," Jacob shrugged. "Sometimes they're diluted and sometimes they're enhanced when combined. Or something along those lines."
Desmond slumped in his seat, feeling more lost and confused with more questions than answers.
Bayek placed a hand on his shoulder, and Desmond looked up at him. Bayek's eyes were kind and comforting. "It will be alright, Desmond. When you return home, you'll learn more as you grow older. And…"
He held Desmond's chin up. "Whenever you feel alone, you remember that although you can't see us, we'll be with you through every step."
Desmond could feel his eyes burning, and overcome by emotion, he threw his arms around Bayek. The Founder of the Hidden Ones was taken by surprise of the gesture. Then a smile appeared on his face. The first real one he had felt in a long time. He wrapped his arms around Desmond, and returned the embrace.
For the first time in his life, surrounded by the ancestors of his family, Desmond didn't feel alone.
000{{*}}000
Elizabeth stepped outside her home and took a deep breath, inhaling the cold scent of the woods surrounding them. From the pine trees to the rotting leaves to the damp earth, Elizabeth took it all in as she sought a reprieve for just a moment. Gavin was with William right now, making sure he was distracted and not attempting to break his bindings. Elizabeth was grateful. If she stayed in their bedroom a minute longer, she most likely would have snapped and murdered her husband. She honestly loved William, but even after twenty years of marriage, that bastard had a way of making her want to fly off the handle.
After getting two more hours of sleep, Elizabeth had shared her theory of Desmond's whereabouts with William. William had been skeptical, or at least had tried to seem skeptical. William Miles was a man who believed in logical explanations, and Elizabeth's belief of Desmond being in some ghostly plane had seemed illogical. However, Elizabeth could see the second guessing in William's eyes as he spoke. Some part of him doubted his own words. Yet he hadn't spoken of the events that had led to his crazy episode last night. Their medics and one psychologist on the Farm were in agreement to wait the full twenty-four hours before releasing his restraints.
Elizabeth sighed, hugging her shawl against the day's chilled air while reaching to fiddle with the necklace she wore. Her parents had made it all look so easy: raising a family while staying committed in their fight against the Templars. Although the memories were painful, Elizabeth clung to them, refusing to let them go.
She remembered their travels all over the world. They would stay in rented homes for months, playing the part of a normal family to outsiders while her parents would take turns hunting down their targets before moving on to the next safe house. She supposed some children would have enjoyed it, always moving to the next adventure, but Elizabeth was always saddened by these changes. She would get use to a place before they would up and leave. Keren hated it too because she would sometimes have to leave behind the stray animals she would feed and love.
Elizabeth supposed the one constant thing in her childhood was the winter holiday at her Uncle Benji's safe house in Brazil. Outsiders would find her Uncle Benji terrifying with his large frame, quiet demeanor, and jagged scar down the left side of his face, but to Elizabeth he was an absolute teddy bear to her and her sister. After dinner he would play games with them, teaching them how to keep a poker face. Yet, for all his smiles there was a sadness in him. He never called her sister Keren, but Kitty. She remembered it taking several drinks of cachaca for her to share the tragic story of her dear Aunt Keren her sister had been named after, who loved to dance, but died fighting in the Warsaw Uprising, and even more drinks about her Aunt Hania and cousin Pawet and the unborn baby.
The surviving Bransky brothers had survived the Holocaust, different men. From what Elizabeth understood, nobody in her father's family knew about the war of Assassins and Templars until they stumbled upon one trying to help the Jews escape from their imprisoned ghetto. The Branskys were musicians, artists. Before the war, they managed a theater Elizabeth's grandfather ran, her grandmother would help with costumes, and her father and uncle would play the violin and cello respectively in the orchestra while her Aunt Keren would dance with the other performers. They weren't fighters, and yet when the chance came to fight back against their oppressors and persecutors of their people, Gideon, Benjamin, and Keren Bransky did not hesitate to join the fight.
Sometimes growing up, Elizabeth would have a hard time believing her father was capable of harming anyone. What child imagines her father's gentle hands that would carry her to bed and care for her skinned knees, could also break bones and drive a hidden blade into a person?
Her mother gave off the same vibe too. To outsiders she would seem like a proper Englishwoman. To Elizabeth and Keren she would be a firm but loving mother who braided their hair and taught them how to behave. But to the Templars, Nora Crowder-Bransky was a dangerous Assassin who had crawled through Europe and into Germany, slipped past skilled and deadly soldiers, and assassinated Adolf Hitler, the Templars most deadly and insane Grandmaster.
If Elizabeth had grown up in a regular Assassin's community like William and Gavin had, perhaps she would have felt overshadowed by her famous parents, but they traveled so often and rarely saw any other Assassins outside of family she was never able to compare. She was fine with that as a child. Her parents and sister were her whole world. She grew up loved and protected, training in the dark outside their rental in a secluded spot where no one could see them, and would fall asleep to the sound of her mother's voice reading to her and Keren, or her father playing the violin.
When she was eleven years old her family found a beach house in Southern California, secluded from civilization except for one neighbor two miles inland that owned a ranch: another Assassin family, the Mckyes. The Mckyes were old friends of her parents from their war days, and they were like an aunt and uncle to Elizabeth. Tom Mckye taught her how to climb the cliffside near her house, and Vicky McKeye taught her how to navigate with the stars and daylight without a compass or watch. Their daughter Mary was also Elizabeth's best friend. Sweet and loyal Mary. They would play for hours, pretending to be Assassins and Templars with Keren and Elizabeth would win everytime. Like Keren, Mary could hardly kill a fly, and would ball her eyes out every time her father would put one of their cows down to be butchered. And yet, Elizabeth wouldn't have had her any other way. Her parents never talked about leaving after a few months, and it seemed like they had finally found a permanent home for their family along with the McKyes. Those became the best years of Elizabeth's life.
Until she turned sixteen.
Elizabeth still didn't know how, but somehow the Templars had tracked them down. The two families had been having dinner together at the Branskys' home when Uncle Tom ran into the house with a look of terror and horror.
"They found us!"
Elizabeth had never seen her parents move so fast. Her father grabbing their weapons while her mother grabbed their emergency bags. She remembers her sister screaming for her cat Minnie before the first array of bullets pierced their house. Her father had shoved her and Keren to the ground, shielding them with his body before he shouted at them to move. She remembers crawling on the kitchen floor, cutting her hand on a broken dish that had fallen, before reaching the secret hatch that would take down a secret tunnel to escape. Mary and her mother were the first to escape before another shower of bullets hit them. She remembers Keren crying, grabbing her to bring her down the tunnel before looking back at her parents.
Till the day she dies, Elizabeth will never forget the look on her father's face as her mother pleaded with him. "I'm not leaving you!"
There was love in his gold eagle eyes as he pulled off the Magen David from around his neck before he placed it in her mother's hand. "I love you girls so much."
He pushed his wife and daughters down the hole and closed it. Elizabeth must have been in shock after that, because she couldn't remember anything until they were in their escape boat. Keren was sobbing, Mary was grasping Elizabeth's hands, Aunt Vicky was steering the boat, while her mother was looking out towards the horizon, pretending the salt water on her face was from the ocean.
That's how Elizabeth's childhood ended.
When they found an Assassin stronghold at the border of Mexico, Elizabeth had found herself in the training yard one night. She approached a tree and slammed her first into its bark. She threw another and another, unleashing the grief and anger she had been holding in since that horrible day. The pain felt good, satisfying until her mother found her. By then her knuckles were bleeding. Her mother said not a word, only nodding her head towards the yard's sparring ring. The tree couldn't hit back, but her mother the Assassin could. Elizabeth charged and fought, imagining her mother was the Templar who took her beloved father, her Tatuś. Her mother would block her attacks and shove Elizabeth back, but Elizabeth would push back harder. She fought with passion, ignoring the pain in her knuckles and the rest of her body. In the end, her mother's experience won out. Elizabeth's raging emotions had left her exposed too many times until Nora decided to end it. Elizabeth had fallen on her knees and a dam broke. She sobbed her heart out, mourning the loss of her Tatuś, her childhood, and the wonderful family they had been. Her mother had wrapped her arms around Elizabeth and allowed her to cry into her shoulder, but still Nora had refused to make a sound. It was like she had shut off her feelings.
After that Elizabeth devoted herself into full training as an Assassin from fighting to tracking to infiltration. Mary and Aunt Vicky went their own way in the Brotherhood, separated from the Branskys. Elizabeth had sought out to continue her parents and uncle's work of hunting down the Nazi Templars in hiding. It was during that time, Elizabeth met William Miles and Gavin Banks. Despite their rocky start, and the fact that the two men were several years older, Elizabeth grew fond of them, especially William. She still remembers how they never seemed to get away from each other, always colliding. If she hadn't known better, she would have called it fate, but William of course fought against it until he couldn't anymore. Before she realized it, William Miles had become her rock, and after many trials they were married. Those first few years of marriage had been tough but blissful, and Elizabeth hadn't ever regretted it. However, their marriage faced its most dangerous trial when Keren died.
Dear Keren, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring herself to kill anyone no matter how horrible they were. Instead she had thrown herself into researching the Ones Who Came Before, the Isu. Elizabeth had loved her sister despite their differences, but Keren had felt the weight of their family's legacy, especially as Elizabeth's reputation in the Brotherhood grew mission after dangerous mission. That's why she had volunteered for the mission to safeguard Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India, even working alongside her ex-boyfriend Jed who was part of her team. Gandhi believed that she possessed a Piece of Eden found among her father's belongings, and had wished to pass it to the Assassins for safekeeping. What should have been an easy task of protecting the Prime Minister and retrieving the artifact turned into a deadly disaster. The Templars had infiltrated Gandhi's security, assassinating her, and stealing the artifact. Keren and her team were murdered trying to protect both, except for Jed who had been on the brink of death by the time help had arrived.
Elizabeth remembered how William had informed her, his body slumped and eyes downcast. She remembered sobbing into his shirt, thinking of the little sister who brought stray animals into the house to nurse and care for. The worst part was telling her mother the news. Her mother was like a strong and formidable mountain, but when Elizabeth told her the news, she watched that mountain crumble. Her mother had walked out that room and away from everybody else. Elizabeth had followed her and witnessed her mother break. Her screams still haunted Elizabeth to this day. Her mother had screamed, crumbling to the floor, crying out for her baby. Elizabeth remembered how when she had cried for her father, her mother never made a sound, and realized she had kept herself from breaking for the sake of her two daughters who needed her. Now one of them was dead and it had finally broken Nora's walls. Elizabeth had picked her up and held her just like her mother had done all those years ago. Together they mourned Keren.
The Assassins had recovered two bodies of the other Assassins in Keren's team, but not Keren's herself. The Templars had taken it, but why? They had to wait until Jed woke from his coma to receive answers. He had watched as he was bleeding to death, the Templars trying to use non-lethal force to subdue Keren, but she had fought back so viciously they were forced to kill her. He remembered them saying how disappointed Dr. Vidic would be, but that Dr. Moira Rikkin would be pleased to run tests on the body.
Ice had filled Elizabeth's veins when she realized the Templars' plans for her sister's body. She had been helping William uncover information on Abstergo's new Animus project. A machine that could read genetic material and uncover the memories of one's ancestor, but so far the machine was only able to work on living subjects. The project was run by Dr. Warren Vidic, but he was assisted by Dr. Moira Rikkin, wife of Abstergo board member Dr. Alan Rikkin. Why did she want Keren's body? Images of her little sister laid out and gutted like a dissected frog, made Elizabeth's blood melt from ice to a furious boil. She had turned to her mother and promised she would retrieve Keren's body and make her killers pay. She was not the inexperienced child she had been when her father died. Now, she was a fully grown who had killed many Templars and was about to kill more.
Her mother had looked at her, her expression cold and firm as steel. "We will make them pay, and we will make them suffer."
But they couldn't do it alone.
They had recruited Mary, her husband Joseph, and several others who had loved Keren and respected the Branskys. Elizabeth didn't tell William her plan, knowing he would have tried to stop her, and left in the middle of the night. They infiltrated Abstergo in London where they tracked Moira Rikkin and Keren's body. Her mother and Mary had gone to the lower levels where the labs were while Elizabeth, Joseph, and the other Assassins began their work. They killed many guards and infiltrated the late night meeting Moira was having with her team. While she regretted Vidic not being there as well, killing Moira was still satisfying. She had sliced the woman's throat open, and listened to her dying words. It had all been done in the name of science and legacy, one she hoped to fulfill for her daughter Sofia, and now hoped her daughter would complete. Elizabeth had been disgusted. She had lost her sister, her mother lost her daughter in the name of science?
They had made a clean getaway, her mother carrying Keren's body, Mary all the folders and files of research Moira had made on Keren, and setting Moira's labs on fire as a parting gift. Once they made their escape and boarded a smuggler plane did they look into Moira's research. The Templars had been looking into the life of Altair Ibn-La'Ahad, one of the most famous mentors in the Assassin Brotherhood. They had followed his family line down through the centuries, until they found Elizabeth and Keren, the only living descendants the Templars had been able to find. It seemed their original plan had been to capture Keren alive to place her in the Animus, but with her death, the Templars had been forced to change it. Moira had hoped to collect Keren's DNA samples to preserve until they had advanced the Animus machine to where they would no longer need living descendants to extract information. The information had sickened Elizabeth, but she was glad her mother had retrieved Keren's body and destroyed Moira's lab, leaving no trace of DNA for the Templars to use. The mission had been a success with only a couple of them suffering bad injuries.
The plane flew them across the Atlantic, and after refueling, respected Nora's request to fly them to their old home in Southern California. Elizabeth hadn't been to that place since that horrible day, but her mother wanted to cremate Keren and spread her ashes in the last place they had been like a true family so she could be with her father. After sending Keren off, the group had made their separate ways with Nora and Elizabeth prepared to take the full reprisal from the Council and William. It was the worst fight she and William had ever had, but nothing William said or accused her of could make her regret her actions, and her mother practically told the council to "sod off"when they reprimanded her and Elizabeth's actions. They feared the Templars retaliating for the slaughter the Branskys had committed.
They were proven right a year later.
Assassins began to disappear or be found dead. The worst was when Elizabeth heard about Mary and her family. She remembered the night Mary and Joseph had married in a lovely ceremony at the Farm. how happy and in love they were, and Mary telling her the news of her pregnancy, and the birth of her and Joseph's son Callum. Elizabeth had trouble believing the rumors that Joseph had been the one to murder Mary, remembering the adoration as he looked upon his bride. No, if anything, Elizabeth believed Mary was afraid of going through what Keren almost had, and made him kill her to spare her from such a fate. Elizabeth hated how they had never been able to find Callum, her godson, and felt as though she had failed her family again.
The final blow had been her mother's death.
After giving Keren her final rites, her mother had laid low for several months before returning to Great Britain. She had hoped to reconnect with her Crowder cousins and try to oust the Templars from the country of her birth. Based on what they uncovered, a traitor revealed her mother and her allies to the Templars. Alan Rikkin himself had led the team that raided the safehouse, slaughtering every Assassin until only Nora had remained. Injured and cornered, Elizabeth's mother had refused to be taken alive or dead. She had lit a flare before committing suicide with her own blade. Dying, she had dropped the flare, setting off the safehouse's boobytrap, and setting it aflame. Nora Crowder-Bransky had taken over half the Templar team, but not Rikkin unfortunately.
When William told Elizabeth of her mother's death, she felt the walls inside her heart shatter, leaving her numb. She had lain in bed for three days, not eating and barely even drinking. She remembers William sitting next to her, trying to offer comfort in the only way he knew how. Elizabeth knew as an Assassin she had to find a way to pick herself up and carry on with the fight, but as a daughter and sister she couldn't. Her mother. Her strong, fierce, beautiful, and wonderful mother was gone. The fight had left her.
On the third day when she finally tried the soup William had given her, it came back out. Elizabeth had chalked it up to grief and her body hadn't eaten anything in days, but when days passed and she kept vomiting, they talked to one of their doctors. The cause turned out to be because she was pregnant. She faintly remembered Will swaying at the news while she had sat in the office stunned.
Pregnant.
After a few years of marriage, she and Will had discussed having a family, but three years passed and no babies from their efforts. Elizabeth had begun to believe it wouldn't happen after every mission she took and the risk of injury. Now, when she had lost almost everybody close to her, this miracle happened. It felt like a sign. She heard of Angels growing up, and a part deep inside her believed Keren, Mary, and her mother had sent her one. She felt a spark of hope. Yet even as she felt that spark, she could also feel that wave of terror threatening to consume her. The Templars went after her family because of their bloodline, no doubt they would come after her child too if they discovered its existence. The Farm Will and Gavin had grown up on was the oldest safe haven still hidden in America. It would be a safeplace for their child to grow. As they settled into a routine, Elizabeth finally allowed herself to properly mourn her losses and deal with her depression while she focused on the baby.
Desmond came two weeks early. William had been out hunting with the novices while she had stayed in to finish up the baby's room when she felt it. Twenty hours of labor, and when William finally burst into their home to find her laying against the couch with Gene, their midwife helping, she had been ready to kill him. She settled for cussing him out while he held her hand, and wiped the sweat from her brow. In the last hours as the contractions became closer and longer, her curses turned to pleas for William to never leave her no matter what. When it was time to push, William held her steady and encouraged her through the pain and exhaustion. Finally, out came a tiny, pink, and squealing baby boy. He was the most beautiful thing Elizabeth had ever laid eyes on. When he was cleaned and placed in her arms, Elizabeth couldn't help but marvel at her son's features. He had William's strong chin, nose, and cheekbones, and the strong grip he had on her finger reminded her of William's strong steady hands. Yet he took a lot from her side of the family. His hair was dark, and instead of the blue eyes all babies had, his were golden like her Tatuś. His smile was like her sister Keren's too. He was so perfect it brought tears to Elizabeth's eyes.
After that, Elizabeth slowly brought herself out of the abyss she had fallen in. William was her rock, and Desmond was her guiding light in the storm. She had a family again. Desmond was so curious as a baby, exploring the house from top to bottom and figuring a way through the baby proof traps that she and William had to lock their weapons in their bedroom or William's office. He was worse outside. He was as curious as those cats Keren adopted, and always found ways to keep his parents on their toes and their hearts in their throats. Elizabeth won't ever forget the time she and William found Desmond climbing on the roof at six years old before losing his grip and slipping. It was the fastest she had ever seen her husband move, but he caught their son and the two of them fell to the ground with a couple of bruises and the wind knocked out of them. He was so smart, it was like he knew things like when she and William were trying to hide something. In that department, he reminded her of her mother.
He was so special, and yet it set him apart from the other children on the Farm. Majority of them were older, but none of them ever tried to make him feel part of their group. It would break Elizabeth's heart to see her son all by his lonesome self while the other children laughed and played games. After his fall from the roof, William had believed it was time to start training Desmond. As Assassins it was normal to begin training your children young and after that roof incident it would be best if Desmond knew how to do better, but even in Elizabeth's family six years old was awfully young. As much as she wanted Desmond to remain her sweet little boy, she knew with their lineage he would never be safe ignorant, so she hadn't argued with William. Now she wondered if she should have argued. Perhaps if she had stepped in, kept William from pushing too hard, Desmond wouldn't have felt the need to run away and disappear with that Orb of Eden.
Her hand gripped the Magen David around her neck, the edges digging painfully into her palm. The pain brought her back into the present. Tears had fallen down her cheeks just like they always did when she delved too deep in the past. After her father's death, her mother had given her his Morgan David necklace he had worn since WWII in memory of his family. Elizabeth never practiced the Jewish faith, but she kept it as a reminder for all the suffering and endurance her family had been through.
She wiped her eyes, and it was then she noticed Dr. Anderson standing a few feet from her porch, a look of concern on his face. Elizabeth worked on her composure, ignoring the burn in her eyes as she faced him. She greeted him, and he returned it before asking how she was doing.
"I'm fine," she lied automatically. She could reveal her vulnerability to William and Gavin, but no one else.
Dr. Anderson seemed to know she was lying, but thankfully didn't point it out. He approached the porch, carrying a notebook with him. "I tried writing down everything I remembered from that one encounter with the Orb, trying to make sense of it."
"And what have you found?" Elizabeth asked.
She had only told William and Gavin her suspicions on where the Orb could have taken Desmond. She didn't know if anyone else would believe it, but if she could convince Dr. Anderson… but the doctor shook his head.
"Even for a mineral as rare as that Orb was made out of, I don't know how it would possess the power to transport someone. At least not scientifically. There's no hint of machinery or electricity in it, but we all saw it glow that night. I just can't figure out how."
Elizabeth could feel her heart drop. From what the Assassins had come up with studying the Ones Who Came Before, they seemed like a knowledgeable race more advanced than anyone living today. They had used science to preserve their memories in their artifacts for the Assassins to find, but was there such a thing as supernatural?
"Will was receiving a fax from the Assassins who found the Orb about the site they found it in. Would that help?"
Dr. Anderson let out a sigh. "It's worth a shot, but I believe it's all just guesswork. Even if we figure out where the Orb had sent him, there's no guarantee we'll be able to reach him."
Elizabeth looked down, her hand gripping the Morgan David as she felt her hope beginning to crumble.
Dr. Anderson placed a hand on her shoulder. "Now don't give up, Liz. Your boy has an adventurous spirit, and a stubborn will I have ever seen. He'll find a way, and I have no doubt he'll have a tale or two when he comes back."
Elizabeth felt her lips quirk up. "Can you promise that he will come back?"
Dr. Anderson's expression dropped. "No, and if he does, he will not be the same."
That's what Elizabeth feared as she looked out into the wilderness. She had never been the religious type, but she prayed to whoever was listening to watch over her boy and return him back home safe.
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Cain is EVIL. I tried basing his scene off of when Palpatine tells Anakin the story of Darth Plagueis in order to manipulate him.
Yeah, for the story of Caesarian's siblings Helios Alexander, Cleopatra Selene, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, my sister and I love reading anything to do with Cleopatra's daughter. We know that when Marc Antony and Cleopatra died their children were taken to Rome and were forced to participate in Octavian's triumphant parade (even making the children wear heavy chains for the show), and they were placed in the care of Octavian's sister Octavia (also Marc Antony's ex-wife whom he left for Cleopatra). History doesn't exactly say what happened to their sons. They seemed to have disappeared. In the books, I read from Selene's pov, Ptolemy died of illness or poison from Octavia in Cleopatra's Moon, and Helios was murdered by Octavian's assassins the day he turned fifteen (in Cleopatra's Daughter) because as an adult in Roman society Octavian feared people rallying behind the son of Marc Antony and Cleopatra. With so many perspectives I tried mixing what had happened to them in Assassin's Creed, and gave Helios a happier ending in reuniting him with his brother. As for Selene, based on her pov in the books I read she remembered her brother Caesarian very fondly and was heartbroken over his death, so I believe that even when he joined the Hidden Ones, Caesarian would have kept an eye on his siblings. Selene was also very clever, and was deeply loved by her husband Juba who became Caesar's foster son when he invaded his kingdom of Numidia and defeated his father King Juba I. So I thought this would be a good story to add in to Amunet and Bayek's history as well reuniting them with their long lost daughter.
Everybody in the Miles Clan needs a hug! Each and every one of them.
I may have gotten a little carried away with writing Elizabeth's backstory, but I felt this need to get it out, and I won't lie, I came close to crying once or twice while writing it. We hardly know anything about Desmond's mother, and so anything is possible. She does seem to have the Fryes and Dorians reckless tendencies, at least in her youth, as well as Altair, Bayek, and Amunet's efficiency. I recently rewatched the Assassin's Creed movie and wanted to tie in bits of it in the story. Callum Lynch's mother was a McKeye which is how she was descended from Aguilar. Also it would explain how she was prepared to take her own life and Joseph thought of killing their own son to prevent them from suffering through the Animus if they had such thorough knowledge of it and what layed in store for the Assassins. Her mother, Desmond's grandmother Nora was such a badass, and also a very tough woman. Losing both brothers, surviving a horrific war, losing friends, husband, and her own child before taking out several of her family's murderers.
I've been going through Valhalla and I'm about halfway through then I'll begin on Mirage. Yes, I know I'm behind, but I'll catch and hopefully hold on to my muse so I can write some more for this story. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It's the first I've been able to write in a long time and I hope I haven't lost my touch.
One final note, my sister is heading to Florence with some friends for a month, and I've already told her to take a picture of the Cathedral of Santa Maria for me (one of the highest heights in Ezio's game).