New findings

Connor loosened my fingers that kept the stone in an iron like grip and took it into his own hand.
"I must have been in thoughts when I put it on", he murmured. "I had it in my pocket the whole time."
"So you didn´t notice that you were wearing it?"
Connor slowly shook his head and turned the stone between his fingers, where it shimmered bluish in the moonlight. The troubled feeling I had felt all of the sudden became stronger the longer I watched this play of light.
"But actually I maddened myself with checking if I still had it. Probably I put it on to not lose it."
"Without noticing it?"
"You would be surprised of what you can do instinctively while being hunted through the city by a patrol." Connor smiled lightly, but I still wasn´t reassured by this explanation.
"Did you notice how cold it is?", I asked. "You had it under your clothes the whole time, it should have at least a bit of your body's warmth, don´t you think?"
"Probably." Connor grabbed the stone and finally pulled the leather ribbon over his head. I couldn´t say why, but I was relieved when he put it away. Maybe it was absurd but I had the feeling that nothing good could come from this thing. But what did you expect from a stone that had the strange feature to shine on its own?
"Did you find something out?", I asked, also to distract myself from said feeling. But basically, I wanted to tell what I had learned. The longer I waited, the more I had to expect that Connor would be angry about how I broke my promise. But at the moment, my husband didn´t seem to be with me in his thoughts. With his arms crossed, he was standing next to the chair where he had left his clothes and the necklace and kept his eyes on the latter.
"Connor?"
He needed this approach to get out of his obvious absorption and to look at me. "Hm?"
"I have asked you if you found something out."
"Of course. Sorry." Connor turned away from the chair and went to the bed, where he sat down on the edge and folded his hands in his lap. "I couldn't learn much", he began to explain, while I stepped to the washstand and turned on the lamp on it. "I was able to meet a man who once worked for Ray and I asked him for the stone. He told me that it was part of a whole box with such stones and that Ray chose one before he ordered Olivia to sell them."
"Olivia? She didn´t tell us." I had stepped to the bed with the lamp and had put it on the bedside table. Now I sat down next to Connor, who was shaking his head about my words.
"She did not know that we took it and I think that she did not find them important. The only thing I do not know is where she sold the stones and I also do not know where Olivia so that I cannot ask her. I guess I have to listen around tomorrow."
"You don´t." I saw how Connor gave me a surprised look, before I stood up and went to my own discarded clothes. I grabbed my waistcoat and took the stone I had bought from Mrs Turing out of the pocket. Shortly I firmly closed my hand around it, felt how its cold round edges pressed against my palm and finally lifted it to put it against my cheek. It was warmer than before.
"What do you have there?", Connor's voice sounded behind me and frowning, I stopped my little experiment. This stone wasn´t like Ray's. Maybe the fact alone that it was adapting body warmth was certainly not a clear indication for this guess, but it was just a notion of mine. A notion I kept to myself as I went back to Connor and laid the stone into his hand.
"Where did you get this?", Connor asked confused and stroked his finger over the smooth, blue surface.
"When I told Maria about Ray's stone, she recognized its description and told me about an old lady who is selling several of these stones in her shop", I began to tell him and sat down next to Connor again. "I thought it was a trace and so I went to this shop with Maria." A short, disapproving gaze from Connor which I ignored skillfully. "Mrs Turing, the shop owner, really had a box full of these stones which she bought from a young woman." I made a momentous break and Connor gaze turned from a disapproving, into a thoughtful one.
"Olivia?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Maybe. Anyway, soldiers came to Mrs Turing shortly afterwards and said that the stones were stolen goods. But their general was only interested in one particular stone and it was the only one he took with him. Mrs Turing remembered that this stone was the only damaged one."
"And the general was Peter Callaghan?"
I nodded and Connor murmured something in his mother tongue while he ran his flat hand over his face. "I should have known", he said. "If Callaghan's stone is like Ray's, then it is an explanation for Callaghan's interest in finding your brother. He wants this second stone. For whatever reasons."
"If these stones are so special, why didn´t Ray keep both of them?"
"Maybe he did not know. Maybe he thought they were just pretty jewelry. On the first sight, there is nothing special about the stones."
Connor turned the little blue piece I had bought today between his fingers. He watched the play of the broken light inside of it, frowning thoughtfully. Then he stood up, went to his clothes and lifted the necklace with Ray's stone. Now he held both into to light and many blue spots danced over the walls. But Connor shook his head.
"They are not made of the same material", he said and made me stand up and walk to him.
"What do you mean?", I asked and looked at the two stones like Connor did.
"Look closely", he told me and lifted the stone I had bought a bit more. "The light is only shining through it. As if it was glass, but this one..." He lifted Ray's stone. "The light breaks several times inside of it. Do you see it?"
Yes, I did. In the light, it seemed like Ray's stone possessed several facets you didn´t notice normally. Almost like a polished diamond. But it was impossible that this stone was a gemstone."
"Maybe they are just processed differently", I said, but Connor shook his head again. He went to the washstand and I watched with arched eyebrows how he poured water into the bowl, washed both stones in it and – to my surprise – pushed the smaller stone between his lips.
"If you´re hungry, Stephane certainly has dinner for you", I commented dryly but Connor replaced the small stone with Ray's. Then he nodded and washed both stones again, only to hold the smaller one into my direction.
"Here. Tell me how it tastes like."
"It´s…a glass stone. How is it supposed to taste like?"
"Do not make a fuss and tell me." Connor stretched out his hand with the stone to me and tapped the little blue thing against my closed mouth. I uttered an annoyed sound, wrested the stone from Connor and pushed it between my lips myself. I shortly tapped the tip of my tongue against it and released it into my hand again.
"Like nothing", I grumbled which was acknowledged by Connor with a nod, before he gave me the other stone. I rolled my eyes but held back the objection and…tasted this one as well. But this time I screwed up my face with disgust. A disgusting, metal taste was spreading in my mouth. Mixed with something that reminded me of the smell of burning gunpowder.
"A difference, is it not?", Connor asked me, as if we had just tried vine and no stones. I let the stone fall back into my hand and went to the bowl to wash out my mouth. This taste seemed to have nested on my tongue and made me feel nauseous. My reaction seemed to be answer enough for Connor.
"They must be made of two different materials but I do not know which Ray's stone is made of. It tastes metallic but I do not know metal that has this color and structure. Do you?"
"No." I scooped water into my mouth for the fifth time already, put my head back, gurgled shortly and spit it back into the bowl. "But I´m rather interested in what made you thought you could taste this difference."
Connor only shrugged his shoulders. "Why not?"
"Because you don´t know what this…stone is and because it could be poisonous?"
"In this case, it is probably good that you washed out your mouth."
Connor put the stones aside and went back to the bed, where he carefully lied down next to sleeping Emily. In the meantime, I took the bowl, stepped to the window and emptied its content onto the street, which brought me an angry call of a drunken man who obviously had slept under the window. He should be glad that I hadn´t emptied a night pot over his head. Without saying anything, I closed the window again, put the bowl back and watched how Connor made himself comfortable next to his sleeping daughter.
"You don´t want to rush away and find Callaghan?", I asked smirking, while he pushed the pillow behind his nape and spread the blanket over himself and Emily.
"It makes no sense. I could take the stone from him, if he still has it, but before I want to know what these stones are and why the templars want to possess them. I have to think about how to go on."
It sounded reasonable. Like always.
"By the way, I´m sorry for not keeping my promise."
Connor, who had carefully ran his fingers through Emily's black hair, paused his caresses and looked at me, who was still standing by the washstand.
"I accept your apology", he just said. "At least you learned more than I did and you did not went directly to Callaghan to talk to him. It is an advance."
"In what?"
"In taking my words to heart and not leaping into every recklessness you find."
I chuckled. Basically I could have said this sentence to him, but Connor was the one of us who had better chances to stay reasonably unharmed by this recklessness. But about the rest…well, the last word wasn´t spoken yet and we both knew it. We were both stubborn in our own ways. I was just glad that Connor wasn´t reproaching me for today, but was even worshipping my success.

With a satisfied smile, I stepped to the bed as Connor invitingly pulled the blanket back, but I turned around once again and grabbed into my waistcoat's pocket.
"I bought something for you, too", I said, wrapped my hand around the little object and finally slipped under the blanket to Connor, who looked at me closed fist with uncovered curiosity. "Mrs Turing was quite…talkative. I wasn´t able to tell her what I was looking for, when she started to lead me through the shop, believing I wanted to buy a gift for my husband. Everything she showed me was nothing that would have been useful to you, but when I wanted to leave the shop, I saw something."
I grabbed his hand, put the little object inside, closed it and held it in mine for a moment. I smirked. "Actually it isn´t useful either, but I found it pretty and more suitable than a pipe, a flask or a pocket watch." I let Connor's hand go and gave him the signal to open it, which he did in an instant. At first he frowned when he looked at the object in it, but when he lifted it and held it into the light, he scrutinized it attentively. It was a thump-sized, quite flat horse made of tin with striding fore- and hind legs which made it look like it was trotting over a meadow, full of pride. The details like nostrils, eyes and the structure of mane and tale were only vaguely visible when Connor turned it to the light. It was no special object with a special beauty. It was no golden pocket watch or a silver flask. But still Connor seemed to be fascinated by the little thing in his hand.
"What is its purpose? It is so small. It is certainly nothing you use as decoration, is it not?"
I smirked. Did he really not know what he was holding in his hand or was he joking? "What do you think it could be?"
Connor turned the horse again and murmured. "It is not a pin. It is also too small and light to weight something. I do not know." When he looked at me, I could see the helplessness in his eyes. He really didn´t know it.
"It´s just a pewter figure. A toy", I explained with an amused smile. "Normally children have many of them and can reenact the life in a city or a battle in war with little soldiers and canons."
"Really?" Connor pursed his lips thoughtfully while he kept examining the horse. "Is there a purpose behind it? Is it supposed to prepare them for something? The real war for example?"
I hesitated shortly because I didn´t know how to answer his question correctly. I had never thought about it yet and hadn´t played with pewter figures in my childhood. But I shook my head.
"I don´t think so. The children only use their fantasy. They reenact what they heard. Stories about battles for example. I don´t think that they are doing it because they want to fight in war themselves…at least I hope so."
Connor nodded slowly. "Like a girl playing with dolls? They act like the figures are real and play with them?"
"Exactly." I smiled and Connor nodded again. "I think I would have been bored", he said. "Sitting on the floor and pushing figures around…" He shook his head and screwed up his face.
"What did you play when you were a child?", I asked and at the same moment, it became aware to me how little I knew about Connor's childhood with his people. He had only told me about the events that had made him become the man he was today. How he had been found and threatened by templars in the forest as a little boy. How he had found his village burning and lost his mother in the fire. Then how he had left his people to find Achilles to get trained. Quite dark memories. Nothing that would have shown me something about his life before it had turned upside down and I wasn´t even sure if Connor liked to remember. He was silent as first, still turning the horse in his hand, before he closed his fist around it and looked at the ceiling. It seemed like his thoughts were really diving into his past and I watched him silently.
"Like the settler's children today, we had to help in the village, but we had enough freedom. When we had the time, we often went into the forest. We climbed, played hide and seek or chased each other. We had no toys like the colonists' children. At least not such." He opened his hand again and showed the toy made by workers.
"We did many ourselves. The girls had dolls they had made of corn leaves or something like that and we boys often played games to challenge our dexterity. For example, a hoop was rolled around and you had to try to throw an arrow through it. We practiced hunting, fishing, swimming or to shoot with the bow. Many things we did was supposed to prepare us for our later rolls but we had fun."
I had listened to Connor attentively and noticed how the corners of his mouth had rose during his explanations. As if he would like to remember this part of his childhood. I tried to imagine how he had frolicked through the forests with the other children. Omitted and happy. Not so serious and reserved like he was today.
"It sounds like a wonderful way to grow up", I said quietly and Connor nodded.
"For some time, it was." Shortly I saw bitterness in his face and I regretted my words. For Connor, this childhood had been over too soon. Slowly I reached a hand out and let it gently slide over his cheek.
"When Emily is old enough, you can give something of it back to her. She will love to frolic through the forest with you or to learn swimming from you."
Actually I wished it for my daughter. For me, it had been forbidden to run around and play. It should be different for her.

Connor's face had brightened up with my words. He seemed to like the images I had created and still smirking, he regarded the horse once again. I did it, too.
"It´s nothing special. It´s just a toy but it attracted my attention and I wanted to buy it for you. Although it's nothing useful for you."
Connor gave me a short glance, shook his head and laid an arm around my hip. Before I knew it, he had pulled me closer and had gently stroked a strand of hair behind my ear.
"It is a gift from you", he said in this simple, almost objective tone that was proving even more how serious he was about his words. "As such, it is special to me and I will cherish it. Niá:wen."
"You´re welcome." I smiled and allowed Connor to lean over me to put the horse onto the bedside table and turn off the light. I was glad that he liked this gift although it was so ridiculously small. I just had wanted to buy something for Connor and the horse had been the only object I had liked. Now, connected with the insights into Connor´s childhood, it had become special for me, too. After I had grabbed over Connor for a moment and had caressed Emily gently, I laid an arm over the man next to me and cuddled up against his chest to sleep. Like always I was carefully moved so that Connor could find a comfortable position to sleep, too and I closed my eyes, sighing contentedly, when he laid still. One arm was lying over my hip and from time to time, I felt Connor´s fingers brushing over the roundness of my bottom, as tender as a breath of wind. I didn´t think anything about it and was close to slide into the gentle arms of sleep, when Connor began to move again, slightly changing his position until he uttered a deep sigh and cleared his throat.
"Lillian?"
"Mhm?"
"You do not have a nightgown with you, do you not?"
I hesitated. "No", I answered slowly. "Why are you asking?"
"Well…nothing. I just thought that…" Connor paused and released a resigning sigh. "Your shirt is so damn short."
Short silence, while my halfway sleeping brain tried to find sense in Connor's words. Then I found it and couldn´t hold back an audible grin.
"And it´s keeping you from sleeping?"
Reluctantly Connor uttered a confirming hum which widened my grin even more. This poor, poor man. Probably his thoughts were already with moonlit sheets, but it couldn´t be pleasant with a child right next to you.
"Then I will release you", I smirked, kissed his lips and stood up to lie down on Emily's other side. I saw how Connor turned into my direction and felt his hand shortly brushing my cheek.
"You do not think that I do not want to be with you, do you not?", he asked and I had to smirk about the sudden uncertainty in his voice.
"No. It´s alright." I shortly pressed my lips against his palm and curled up. Still with a wide smile and a teasing "Dream well" on my lips, I finally fell asleep. But instead of dreaming well myself, my mind was only concentrating on Ray's stone and removed every positive feeling I had felt before sleeping.


It was a small hand, patting my face the next morning that tore me out of my uneasy sleep. I grumbled quietly and when I opened my eyes, I saw the wide smile of my daughter, who propped herself up immediately and crawled to me.
"Good morning, angel", I murmured gently, embraced her, turned onto my back and pulled her on my chest in the process, where she uttered a yawn and cuddled up to me. Smirking I stroked over her head and looked to the other side of the bed. It was empty.
"Did you throw your father out of bed already?" I sat up, Emily pressed tightly against me and saw that Connor's clothes and even his weapons were still here in the room. So he probably just had left to relieve himself, although I wondered why he had left everything behind. He must feel really safe in Stephane's tavern.
Emily's demanding nudging against my breasts got me out of my thoughts and I opened the laces of my shirt to let her satisfy her morning hunger. The smacking and pleased child in my arms, I looked out of the window where the rising sun was sending her first beams into the room. I watched the dance of the dust particles, shimmering in the light and becoming something more beautiful than they actually were. I listened to the noises in the tavern. The heavy steps downstairs that told me that first guests had arrived. The deep snorting in the room next to ours. But above all I was waiting for the door to open and Connor to return. But even when Emily pulled away from my breast with a gurgling sound and I lifted her to my shoulder, he hadn´t come back yet and I began to feel the same uneasiness I had felt in my dreams before.