Assassin's Creed: Revelations

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my own character, and small deviations from the plot.

An eagle soared over my head, shrieking as it flew in the clear sky. I watched it as I stood beside my brother, on a ship bound for Istanbul.

I still couldn't believe that I let Ezio talk me into coming to Masyaf. Well, to be honest, it was both Ezio and Claudia.

Ezio wanted to discover hidden secrets of the Assassins, especially Ezio's ancestor, Altair Ibn Alad, who was the second Grand Master of the Order of the Assassins, his headquarters Ezio had visited, and all the clues pointed to the former capital of Eastern Rome.

Claudia managed to blackmail me into going, using little Maria's fascination of the origins of the Order to get me into it. I could never refuse my little darling, especially when she looked at me with her spectacularly shiny brown eyes.

Claudia and Maria were in Rome, placed in charge of Rome's Assassins until our return. Monterrigioni was in the relatively capable hands of what was left of Mario's milita, since Claudia had become bored of the place, and wanted to go back to Rome.

Maria, now ten years old, was as strong and fiery as her mother, despite her tender age. My two dearest ones, I thought, looking over the landscape around me, my keen eyes not weakened at all from age, despite the fact that I was over fifty.

The funny thing was, Claudia and I did not bear the signs of old age as Ezio did.

Unlike Ezio's salt and pepper colored hair, you would be hard-pressed to find any grey hair on mine or Claudia's head.

Ezio complained of it constantly, but I couldn't come up with any answer suitable, other than teasing him about his age.

I could also still fight and run as often and as well as I did in my youth, and I had still not lost my southern drawl, something that my two girls found deeply amusing, or in Claudia's case, exciting.

I could see the vast city in all it's splendor, since we were almost ready to disembark. I could hear Ezio speaking to a young Ottoman nearby, so I decided to listen in join in the conversation at the appropriate time.

"Watch your sleeve purses when you go to the Bazaar," the young man said to Ezio and I, noticing that I was listening in. The lad was an attentive one. "You get a pretty mixed bag of people there."

I chuckled. "Like in any souk." The young man smiled. "Evet. Just where the towers are, is the Imperial district. That grey dome you can see is the old church of the Haghia Sofia, which is now a mosque."

As the young man pointed out various places, I noticed that he didn't care to speak about the royal family or the palaces very much.

Suspicious? Perhaps he did not care for them. As we walked on the docks, Ezio caught my eye, and nodded toward a group of passing soldiers. He wanted me to eavesdrop, and I gave him a small nod.

From their conversations, I gathered that the Byzantines and the Ottomans were fighting it out, and that the former were our enemies, and they wore rough, reddish clothing.

When I returned to Ezio and relayed the information, Ezio's young man had gotton our sharbats and he continued our conversation. "So you see, for all its beauty, Kostantiniyye (Arabic for Constantinople) is not the most perfect place in the world."

I nodded and shrugged. "Is anywhere?"

The man chuckled as Ezio watched a pretty red-haired woman in a bright green dress struggling with a heavy box. "Incredible! I'm surprised you got anything done at all."

I chuckled as Ezio replied, "So was my mother." The young man collided with me in an attempt help the lady, and I stepped out of his way. "Farewell, friends! Allaha ismarladik (God Bless you)!" With that, he dissapeared into the crowd with the lady.

I felt eyes watching me, and I looked up to see a man watching Ezio and I.

He was a tough man, in his midthirties, in a white surcoat with a red sash, and dark trousers tucked into yellow boots. He had long dark hair and beard, and four throwing knives attached high on his left shoulder. He also wore a scimitar, and his right forearm carried a triple-plated steel guard.

As Ezio and I tensed, I thought I could see the harness of a hidden-blade just beneath his right hand. His surcoat was hodded, but the hood was down, and the man's unruly hair was kept in check by a broad yellow bandana.

When we were within two paces of each other, we eyed each other warily.