exsiliumlogs | In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die

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In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die

Date & Time: Backdated to the night of June 18th
Location:Catacombs
Characters: Ziio and Haytham
Summary: Ziio seeks out Haytham after she and Connor save his life in the hopes of having a civil conversation with him while he's wounded.

[Night falls. Eventually.

It is only when she has the chance to stop and take stock of everything that has happened in these last few hours that Ziio realises how tired she is. Outside the catacombs, the sound of bombs falling rumbles like thunder and the very earth shudders, and she can see the faces of those who are still awake that there are still a great number of scared people in here who will not be sleeping.

Ratonhnhaké:ton sleeps nearby, and after Ziio covers him with a light blanket and a precautionary look at the dressing on his shoulder- no sign of blood or smell of infection- she heads in the direction of the area that has been given over to the medical staff. She will sleep soon, but there is something, or someone more accurately, that she needs to check on before that can happen.

Even someone like Haytham deserved to have someone showing concern for his welfare, and as far as she knows, she is likely the closest thing to a friend that he has in this place. She will not stay for long, but she would prefer to see if the man she and her son risked their lives to save was still alive.

Haytham is lying on a gurney in a quiet corner, surrounded by others who are injured and recovering or being treated by harried looking healers. His colour has improved, she notes, and his entire torso is covered in bandages. The healers are obviously incredibly skilled people to stabilise a man after such a wound. Ziio knows she should be satisfied to see that he is still alive and breathing, but she continues towards him and does not stop until she is at his bedside, quietly wondering what more it is that she will gain from being here.]

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[He doesn't know how long it has been since the bomb. He can remember waking up impaled on a steel bar, can remember the vague flood of relief at seeing Ziio alive and unharmed, can even remember lashing out at Connor before he'd mercifully fallen unconscious once more. Then there is simply nothing, a piece of lost time between then and now, awakening bruised and battered but very much alive in the dark, dank Catacombs.]

[The healer had professed to having used healing magic on his wound. It ached, that space at the juncture of chest and shoulder, but even Haytham has to admit that coming back from a wound like that so quickly might well have been achieved through the use of magic. His own notions of possibility are certainly being stretched a bit more every day in this place.]

[And yet it does ache, this newly healed injury, and he knows from experience that although the immediate pain will lessen, it is an ache that will be with him until he dies. He'd passed up the painkillers that had been offered, preferring to be lucid, and although it is no worse than any other pain he has experienced he stirs restlessly on the gurney, each position more uncomfortable than the last.]

[Perhaps that is his fate: to become less a man and more a collection of old wounds as the years go by.]

[She's almost upon him before he notices her, distracted and pained as he is. When he does finally see her, he sits up on the gurney--even with her, he detests the idea of being at a disadvantage. It is too late to hide the amulet around his neck, out in the open now that he is shirtless and bandaged to the gills, so he doesn't even bother to try.]

...Ziio. You were not injured?

[How on earth can he even think of sitting at a time like this? Foolish man, he should not be taxing himself when only hours ago he was a hair's breadth away from death.]

No, I am unharmed. Lie down, you should not try to do so much so soon.

[For a moment, she is so fixed on the mass of bandages that cover his wound that she almost misses the amulet until the light catches it. She is still, her eyes resting on it, and at that moment a myriad of questions come to mind. Why does he still have it, why is he still wearing it? Has he still not given up on unravelling those old mysteries that had escaped him on that day in the cave?

She remembers how broken he had looked, how it had stirred something in her chest, how it had been the most natural thing in the world to take his hand, close the distance between them and-

A memory now, nothing more.

Her eyes leave his collarbone and travel to his face. He looks so tired, so old, and it is a jarring contrast to the Haytham in the memories that the sight of the amulet conjure. She does not pity him, it would leave a bad taste in her mouth to do such a thing as she knows, alike as they both are in so many ways, that to inspire pity in someone else would be entirely unwanted.

She does feel sympathy. That much is inescapable.

Tentatively, she steps towards him and presses her palm to the uninjured side of his torso, pushing gently and avoiding his eyes. Instead, her gaze settles on a long healed scar on his abdomen. She does not recognise it; there was a time when she knew every blemish on his body and the story behind each marker of his history, but this one she does not know.

Aware that she has looked for too long, she looks to his face again.]

Rest. I will sit with you until you sleep again.

[The touch of her hand stirs something inside him, but it's the ghost of an emotion, so old and faded he barely recognizes it.]

[He watches, instead, with a sense of detached curiosity as her gaze travels from the amulet around his neck down to the scar he'd received from Lucio. That had been just a few short years after she'd cast him out, after Topkapi and... and he can't recall what year that was, only that it had been one long blur of vengeance and death. Had she still been alive when he'd been run through?]

[He resists her efforts to push him back down--he is not so weak that he can't sit up, that the gentle pressure from her hand would be enough to force him back down. Instead he swings his legs down over the edge of the gurney and leans back against the wall on the other side. It's not comfortable, but then again neither was lying down.]

I'm in no mood to sleep at the moment, if it's all the same to you.

How fares Connor?

[Ratonhnhaké:ton, she wants to say. Your son's name is Ratonhnhaké:ton, call him by it, but she will not pick a fight. He is concerned for him and that is enough.

As Haytham moves, she steps back, her hand sliding from his shoulder as though it had never been there. She stands firm, watching him, almost shaking her head at the way he forces himself to sit upright and against the wall. Of course he has his pride, even before her. Perhaps it is especially before her. Stubborn and defiant to the last.]

He is tired but well. A few stitches for his shoulder and a decent night's rest should help. I left him sleeping soundly, he will be fine in the morning. Here-

[She reaches for the pillow he has abandoned and holds it out to him. She will not coddle him, but it would be better if he were leaning against something soft to support the wound.]

If you must sit you will be more comfortable leaning against that. Is there anything you need?

[He would rather refuse the pillow as well, but the pain in his chest and shoulder leave him little choice. He grudgingly takes it from her and wedges it behind him and against the wall, though he has enough presence of mind to stifle the sigh of relief that nearly escapes him. It's bad enough coming here and finding himself twenty years older than she is, he doesn't need to give her the impression that he's gone weak on top of it.]

[...though to be fair, the last time this happened he was out for half a year. One day of convalescence rather pales in comparison.]

[He's vaguely relieved to hear that Connor has suffered no serious injuries, which is a marked improvement from the paranoia-induced rage he'd felt earlier--it had only been earlier today, hadn't it? He'll have to speak to the boy soon, face-to-face and without half the city exploding around them. Maybe they can clear up whatever delusions the boy has about Haytham working with the Initiative...]

[At her question:]

Thank you, no.

[Wait-]

Actually, do you see my coat laying about? I'm not sure what they've done with it.

[She gives the area a precursory glance for his coat and cannot see it anywhere. She half suspects that it's been thrown out; it was a wretched, bloodstained mess by the time they'd managed to get Haytham free of the bar through his chest, it could hardly be called worth salvaging.]

I will search for it, though I do not think it will have been kept. It was not in a good state when we brought you here.

[And nor were you, she would add. He does at least look better now with colour back in those formerly ashen cheeks, and he is obviously feeling well enough to be prickly. Clearly he feels himself once more. There are questions she would ask him, mostly about the things he had said to their son, but now is not the time and she is not sure if she is willing to hear them now.

Today has brought about enough turmoil, they all deserve their peace.]

If it is here, I will find it. How are you feeling?

[Peevishly, though it's obvious that he's not being peevish with her so much as just... vaguely peevish with everything and everyone ever:]

That depends entirely upon whether or not my coat's been thrown away.

[It's not the potential loss of his coat that upsets him--though it's a beautiful garment and he's rather attached to it--so much as the potential loss of the objects within the coat. His journal and his Templar ring were tucked inside, and if he's somehow managed to lose those items-]

[He sits bolt upright and has to wince as the sudden movement stresses the wound in his shoulder.]

[His bracer. The hidden blade. It's not on his arm, so where is it?]

[Through gritted teeth, trying to smooth his way through this:]

Let's find my things now, shall we?

You are acting the fool Haytham, you almost died. You are going to do nothing except stay here and recover. Lie down or I will knock you out, do not think this an idle threat.

[There is the faintest, faintest trace of a teasing note in her voice, but it is gone just as quickly as it arrived.]

If they are lost then they are lost, and if they are the only cost you must pay today then you should be grateful. I thought you dead when I found you there, were we in our own time you probably would be dead now. Lie down.

[The tone of voice she is using is stern, one she has used too many times today and when dealing with fits of mulishness in a small child. It stands to reason that his father should be just as stubborn.]

I will ask about your coat, and I will bring you some water. You should probably drink something.

[Perhaps... perhaps she's right. The objects are irreplaceable--his journal, the one he's been writing in off and on since just after his father's death; his Templar ring; the blade he'd stolen off Miko so many years ago--but he is alive, and if the objects are still whole and within Exsilium he will find them. There is still time.]

[He doesn't lie down but he does sit back against the pillow, exerting more effort than usual to appear nonchalant in doing so. He even goes so far as to give her a small smile.]

Very well. It would appear I am at your mercy for the time being.

It would not be the first time.

[She is pleased when he sits though; at least this way she doesn't have to contend with him keeling over and making himself worse. Given the effort she and Ratonhnhaké:ton went to to keep him alive, it would be beyond irritating if he were to die now.

She returns his smile in a half measure though.]

You are a lucky man, perhaps your luck will stay with you when it comes to your coat. I do not know how good it will look when I find it.

If fashion is the only victim of today's events I will consider myself fortunate, as you've suggested. I care only for the items within the coat.

[There's a pause, and then a short laugh]

And here I'd been lamenting my inability to find a decent waistcoat in Exsilium. Now I've gone and likely ruined the only one I own.

[My god is this... is this small talk? Is this how it works?]

[It has been so long since Ziio has heard Haytham really laugh that the sound surprises her a little. She doesn't quite laugh with him, but there is a faint smile on her face anyway.]

That is hardly your fault. I am sure if you ask you will find someone who could make you one. You will manage somehow until then.

[She pauses for a moment before she sits at the end of the bed looking at him.]

No one will think you improperly dressed just because you're without a waistcoat.

[Haytham leaves that one hanging... there's a limit to the inane chit-chat he can handle, apparently, and how much good is it going to do him to insist that he will feel improperly attired without a proper waistcoat? He is not a vain man but he is a neat one, orderly and precise.]

[Instead he simply sits quietly for a time, seeming to listen to the sounds of the other inhabitants of the Catacombs. When he speaks again he is looking forward, rather than directly at her, and his tone is matter-of-fact.]

Connor believes me to be working with the Initiative. Somehow I'm meant to have helped mastermind all of this.

I know.

[She is quiet and looking at her hands on her knees instead of at him. It seems as though the brief moment of levity is over and they are turning towards other matters.

Her protective instincts don't want to bring up Ratonhnhaké:ton, she doesn't want him to throw insults at their son when he just risked his life to save his father's. She feels on edge and uncomfortable about where this conversation might be heading.]

He says that you have been in this place before too, but... I know what I saw when you arrived here. I do not know how that could be, you were just as lost as any new arrival. I do not know what to think about this place.

[She is not willing to completely throw out the beliefs of her son though, as she turns to look at him intently.]

You are not working with them, are you?

[He gives her a sharp look at the suggestion that he's been here before. Has Connor gone completely daft? He'll have to speak with the boy, find out where he's getting all of these wild ideas, sometime after all of this is over and he's a little more healed.]

[At her question his expression turns, bleeding into some combination of disappointment and disgust.]

If you're asking if I've chosen to side with them since my arrival? No, I haven't. If you're asking whether I've helped them trap everyone in this place...

[He shakes his head.]

Time travel, other worlds... it's ridiculous, the stuff of fairy tales. I'm still half-convinced I've died, that this is my version of Purgatory.

Haytham do not look at me that way, you must know why I had to ask this question. I do not think it is so, but I cannot throw away my son's beliefs and fears as though they are nothing. But I do not think that he is lying, nor do I think that you are lying. I cannot see why you would work with these people who have brought us here, I still think I know you a little. I do not see what you would gain from it.

[And it is hard for her to admit to him, when he has lied to her before and she had already given him her opinion on how he chooses to present the truth. She continues to watch him, her face calm.]

But one thing I do know is that you are not dead. You are as alive as I am and you will stay that way.

[She waits for a moment.]

You did not need to put yourself in danger to look for me. But thank you.

["And that," he wants to say, "is the problem." As alive as you are, and why are you here if not to haunt me?]

[But he doesn't say it. If Exsilium is her second chance, he'll not be the one to deprive her of it. Let her remain in blissful ignorance for as long as possible. The mere fact of her current ignorance means that he and Connor are both in agreement on this one thing, if nothing else.]

I'll speak with him. Perhaps I'll be able to persuade him to see reason.

[Hey, it's happened before.]

[At her last statement he frowns just a little.]

Yes, well. It wouldn't have happened at all if you'd simply listened to me in the first place.

[She sighs in exasperation and throws up her hands. Of course he has to say something to bring her guard back up, they couldn't possibly stick to having a civil conversation.]

And you would have listened to me if the roles had been reversed? I do not like being told what to do, do you remember nothing of me?

[She takes a deep breath and lets her shoulders fall with it.]

In any case, I had Ratonhnhaké:ton to think of. He did not want to see you, though perhaps now he will think differently.

Perhaps.

[The boy hadn't taken the opportunity while Haytham had been unconscious to finish him off, which was a step in the right direction--though before Haytham had come to Exsilium, the two of them had actually been working together (more or less). What had happened in the intervening time to make Connor not only not want to see him, but also want to kill him all over again? Had it been merely the presence of his mother?]

[Haytham resists the urge to tell her that Connor can bloody well look after himself at his age, without her running after him as though he were still a child. No sense in completely derailing the almost-functional conversation they're managing. For once.]

How long has he been here in Exsilium? Do you know?

Edited 2013-08-10 04:25 (UTC)

He has been here some months, he was here when I arrived.

[It is time to be truthful; she suspects that him learning that she has kept this knowledge from him will not please him, but she will defend her actions every time. Ratonhnhaké:ton is her son and she will do all in her power to keep him happy, even keeping his own father from him.

She does not expect Haytham to understand, and she knows why that is. He was not allowed the chance to be a father to their son and it is not a decision she made lightly, to leave him with no knowledge of the life she had harboured inside her. On the day she left him in the forest, she had made a choice and the choice had been her child. It is a choice she is not afraid to make again, if she has to.

She quietly looks at her knees.]

You see now why I cannot work with you.

No, as a matter of fact, I do not.

[Now it's actually taking no small effort to bite his tongue, to avoid snapping at her that Connor is a grown man--though he very seldom acts the part--and she can't make every decision based on what Connor will think.]

[He sighs, expelling the energy he's using to keep himself in check.]

At any rate, I wasn't expecting us to suddenly become the best of friends again. I don't expect you to bear arms with me, or put yourself in danger. I had hoped...

[A pause]

I had hoped that perhaps we could simply avoid tearing each others' throats out. Manage a civil conversation now and again.

[A small, rueful smile.]

And we're off to such a wonderful start.

I do not want to tear your throat out, Haytham. The past is in the past, and that is where it should stay. I do not want to fight.

[She turns to look at him, something unreadable on her face, almost melancholy. She exhales tiredly, any fight that might have been in her leaving with the breath.]

But I cannot overlook what there is now. I do not understand you. The way that you looked at Ratonhnhaké:ton today, the things you have said about him-

[She shakes her head, looking at him quizzically.]

Why? Do you hate him, is that it? Or is it me, is that why you cannot look at your son with anything other than contempt?

I do not hate him. I do not hate either of you.

[This really wasn't what he'd meant by "civil conversation." They're veering into dangerous territory now, and Haytham wants nothing more than to shut things down before he can teeter out onto this ledge. To one side lies the truth--her death, Connor's vengeance, the boy's belief that Haytham had given the order to destroy the village.]

[To the other side lies his own past--the pain of losing Ziio, his inability to connect with his own son, and darker things he has shared with no one but the pages of his own journal.]

[He settles for a version of the truth. He'd told her once, shortly after his arrival in Exsilium, that he wouldn't lie to her anymore. He'll just have to omit the... less pleasant details.]

The boy has thrown his lot in with the Assassins. He believes that because I am a Templar, I am evil incarnate. I can assure you that he is the one who hates me, not the other way 'round.

Is it you, or is it what you stand for that he cannot stomach?

[There is a moment, a brief moment, where she exhales and closes her eyes. Something about this is all wrong; why would Ratonhnhaké:ton have cause to hate Haytham himself? Ziio has always been so careful to not speak ill of him before their son- if she ever spoke of him at all- what would cause him to hate his father himself? When it passes, she looks at him in askance, brown eyes clouded with confusion but her mouth drawn in a thin line.]

He has told me that your men have tried to take our land from our people, and what he has done he has done to protect us. Do you deny it?

[Ah, so Connor's been telling some half-truths himself. Not surprising--he's probably had to skirt around her eventual fate more than once. And how fitting that he should choose to mask the truth with Johnson's plan to gain ownership of the land, one of the things Ziio had flung in Haytham's face as she'd forced him away all those years ago.]

[He shakes his head.]

We sought to own the land on paper, so that others might not steal it out from under your people and ravage it. It has happened before, with other tribes, and it will happen to your people eventually if something's not done.

Perhaps some of my men lack a certain amount of... tact, but half of them are dead now, thanks to our son.

It is not up to you to own our lands for us, we can do so for ourselves. We have managed for hundreds of years before your people even knew that the land existed.

[She gets to her feet, annoyed and frustrated that he still could not see why it was that this angered her so.]

We do not care for paper. The land is ours, and we will not be your people to own. What you seek to achieve is to trick us into being your property and we are not, nor will we ever be. If you want to do something, if you really believe in justice then do something to stop those who would steal it. Trying to beat them to it does not give you the high ground.

[Her fists ball by her sides.]

If your men had to die to learn that lesson then so be it. Our son seeks only to do what is right by our people, and I will support him every step of the way to see that end.

[His voice takes on a more sarcastic edge] Perhaps you care nothing for paper, but the bureaucracy in the Colonies does so love it. And what was I to do, stand forever in some clerk's office, brandishing my sword at any and all who might have the coin to purchase the land from under you?

These battles are fought with pens, not muskets. Any man holding a deed to the land would have had the full support of the Colonies to remove you by force. If you resisted they would have called in soldiers, more and more until the job was done. You would have been slaughtered and it would all have been perfectly legal, all because of that little piece of paper.

[He sighs. He's not even sure whether he's referring to their past or his present, anymore. Maybe a bit of both.]

I cannot fight an entire nation of greedy men with my sword alone.

You could have spoken for us!

[She is surprised by the ferocity in her own voice and she takes a moment to compose herself.]

When you speak Haytham, people listen. You are many things I do not understand but you have always been a man who people look to follow. You are a leader. I thought that when I fought by you, I still think that now. Why could you not fight for us with your words? Why seek to own us when you could have given us a voice? I thought-

[Ziio checks herself. This is touching on something personal, something she thought she had buried away long ago but it seems now that the topic is up for discussion it has brought back the sting of the old wounds. Years of keeping a lid on her disappointment and hurt at his betrayal have only made the pain run deeper; it is not so acute, does not take root deep in her heart as it once did, but the ache is dull and commanding.]

Answer me this: what would you have done if you had bought our land? Would you have kept it in your safekeeping or given the deeds to my people?

[He addresses the first set of questions, ignoring the latter for now. He's even managing to maintain his composure for the time being, despite how passionate Ziio has become.]

We do not work so openly, Ziio, you must know that by now. We manipulate events, we do not influence them directly. Our Order remains a secret out of necessity--the last time we were known, it took the death of a Grand Master to keep the rest alive and safe from our enemies.

Perhaps had my path through life been a different one, I could have been the one you needed, the one to give you a voice. But I am a Templar, Ziio, much as you may despise that fact. I did what I thought best, both for the Order and for your people.

[Some unknown, unwelcome emotion claws through his stomach, fighting for life even as he falls silent, tamping it down. Does he even know the answer to her last question? Would the answer then have been different than now, back when she'd still been alive? When he'd been more a man, less a monster?]

I don't know. I suppose I never will, now.

I wonder how you can think you were doing what was best for my people when you never thought to ask us what we wanted. You would have had your answer then. If you had known-

[She stops herself, because the question she asks next will hurt, whatever the answer. But it is one she must ask, because they are being honest with each other now and it is something she has wondered for years now, perhaps it is the same for him too. For a moment, Ziio looks directly at him, at that face she once knew so well, and again she is struck by the changes she sees there. It is not so much the age, the lines that season his skin around the eyes and mouth, but by the way his eyes are guarded, how he seems somehow harder. It seems forever ago that the expression there had been soft and infinitely tender in the dappled light beneath the trees in the wilds of the frontier.]

If you had known then that you would have a Kanien'kehá:ka son with me, and that it was his land and inheritance you sought to take-

[She turns away from him, needing the distance to finish what she has to say.]

If I had told you about the baby and asked you to make the choice that day instead of sending you away... you would never have given up the Templars for us, would you?

[For a moment it seems as though he's about to break the calm he's been trying to maintain. "I sought to take nothing!" he wants to snap at her, to make her understand that it was never his intention to steal anything from her people. Why can she not see that? From Connor he expects no less--the boy is young, he knows no better. But how is it that twenty years have separated Ziio and himself and still they argue about the same things over and over...?]

[Because it is like yesterday for her, he reminds himself, silencing the sharp retort he wants so badly to give. And what point, to what end? Will making her finally understand bring her back into his life, in any larger capacity than the occasional verbal sparring partner she is now? And is that even what he's after?]

[He's tired, he knows that much. He's tired from the attack on the city, tired from his injury, and tired of arguing with her. So perhaps it is the fatigue which drives him, instead of snapping at Ziio, to lean his head back against the wall and give a weak, weary laugh.]

Do you know, I honestly think I might've, back then? Between a son, and what came after-

[Ah, no more of that.]

Not that it matters now, of course. That ship, as they say, has long since sailed.

[She is not sure if that is the better or the worse answer in this case.

With her back turned to him, he cannot see her close her eyes as she bows her head and sighs out through her nose. Five years ago, as her body had grown with her pregnancy and she had felt her baby begin to move inside her, she had questioned whether it was the right thing to do, to keep his father in the dark about him. At the time she had argued that it was the only thing, the right thing, as having Haytham take their child down that dark path towards a future she could not understand was unthinkable to her. That does not mean she never imagined a future with him in her weaker moments, how she had pictured him with their son in his arms, swearing never to go back to the misguided life he had lived as a Templar. She had dismissed it then as nothing more than a lonely fantasy. Even now, as he tells her that he would have given it up for them, she's not entirely sure if he ever could have.

What came after.

She does not think she wants to know. For some reason she has not pried too far into the future that she and her son have in store, has not asked Ratonhnhaké:ton what lies ahead, what she has to look forward to in their life together, but she knows- she fears- that not all of it can have been happy. Her son carries too much sadness in his eyes at times and she cannot bring herself to ask why.

He will tell her in time. She trusts that he will.

But for now, she turns to Haytham again, for once letting her guard down as she lightly reaches to touch his knuckles with her fingertips for the briefest of moments before she withdraws her hand.]

I am not sorry for what I did then. I am Ratonhnhaké:ton's mother. He is my life, I would choose to walk a thousand difficult paths if they meant he would be safe and happy, even now when he is a man here who does not need me. He is still the child I carried, he is still the little boy they took me from to bring me here.

[She swallows hard. There is more she would say, but this is not the time.]

What will you do now they are not here? The Templars. Do you stand for them still or do you stand for you?

[He gives a little lop-sided shrug, favoring the uninjured shoulder as he does so.]

I've not asked you to apologize, nor do I expect it. The past is simply that--the past. I'd have been a terrible father anyway.

[It's said lightly, now that they've somehow managed to find a way to speak of such things without yelling at each other. The last time they'd spoken of Connor, of Haytham being a father... well. He says it as if it is simply fact, though of course he'll never know, will he? The part that might've been a decent father, might've taken after his own father, is long since dead. At present, at least, it is fact. He is a terrible father.]

I'm sorry if this disappoints you, but they are one and the same. I am a Templar. I've committed my entire life to the Order, I am an inextricable part of it. The work we do is for the good of humanity, I can't simply throw that aside.

[I would have nothing without the Order. It is all that is left of me.]

I wish I could believe you. Once I would have, and I know that you have done good. You saved me, my people... I wish you could see that what you wanted to do was not what was good for us, it is not the way to help us. But I understand. You could not stop being one of them no more than I could stop being Kanien'kehá:ka.

[She looks at him searchingly, before she lets her shoulders fall somewhat. It is funny that now he apologises for disappointing her; for years she has lived the with disappointment of shattered expectations from his betrayal. He is a man of principles and for that she cannot fault him, but when those principles are what they are, when they leave a bad taste in her mouth and tainted all their time together with the sting of betrayal... she cannot help but hate them.

And it is a shame that he continues to devote himself to them, alone as he is here.

She never had any problems with Haytham alone.

For a moment, she is reminded of something that Ratonhnhaké:ton had said and it makes her smile sadly. While he would swear blindly that it is not the case, it cannot be ignored.

If the Templars are stopped, there will be freedom. There will be peace. For our people... for all people.]

I do not think you realise how alike you and our son are, Haytham. Perhaps you might not have been as terrible a father to him as you say.

Edited 2013-09-04 07:43 (UTC)

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In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die

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