I know there's probably nine other stories like this with Altair and Malik when they were kids, but what can I say? Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to write Kadar (seeing as he died four chapters in with my High School fic). Anywho, enjoy!

A tug on his sleeve roused him from his study of his own handy work on one of shirts, and he looked over to his younger brother, who was craning his head back to stare at something else. The nine year old's voice was still small, "Brother? Who is that?"

He didn't even bother looking. "Does it matter, Kadar?"

"But he's walking with the Grand Master," Kadar stated, still staring, "is he important?"

To that, Malik rolled his eyes. "Oh he's the Master's new pupil, Altair..." Damn, why can't I get this sleeve quite right? Sewing's deffinately a girl's job...

"But don't you have to be really good or something to be his pupil?" Kadar wondered.

"When do you ever stop asking questions," Malik sighed, giving up on his horrid patch job- stupid training incident. "It's not that big a deal. He's just getting special treatment because his father died."

Kadar crossed his arms and looked away. "But that's not fair. But why doesn't he teach us?"

"Because we don't need help," Malik reasoned, maybe it was more to make himself feel a little better, "only novices do."

"And whose the other boy?" Kadar asked, leaning back a little as he returned to staring.

It wasn't too hard to guess. "The Master's other new pupil, Abbas."

"And why is he the Grand Master's student?" His brother seemed to be guessing already.

"Because his father left or something like that, no one's really sure," Malik waved off it off as unimportant. Actually, next to all of it was.

Though clearly Kadar didn't think so. "It's still not fair. They get this attention."

"It's not worth getting worked up over," Malik told him.

After that, Kadar took to crossing his arms and pouting, grumbling time to time on how it really wasn't fair. Oh well. He'd just have to get over it.

With that thought, Malik glanced back and narrowed his eyes a little at Altair. Just because he told his brother to get over it, didn't mean he'd actually follow up on that advice himself. Nope, I'm not letting some pampered student of the Master's get ahead easy.

It was perhaps a week later when a fight broke out during training, and can you guess with who? Altair and Abbas of course. Malik had been waiting for his turn to spar when he had heard that this match would be with real swords, rather than the wooden training ones. Of course, he was interested. It wasn't every day that they were allowed to use real weapons. He didn't want to miss this.

Even from where he stood, he heard Abbas say, "Cunning, that should suit you, Altair. You are cunning and treacherous." Something about those words almost sounded hostile. But the fighting instructor, Labib, didn't seem to notice.

Actually, if Malik were to discribe Labib, he would say he seemed excited. Maybe it had something to do with wooden sword sparring matches seemed so utterly dull and boring to him- a full trained assassin- that the idea of real weapons just made him eager. That was probably correct too.

But what of Altair? When he saw his face, he immediately could see the illness that seemed to form. Was this kid actually scared or something? He was staring up at Labib, giving him this pleading look that was completely ignored. In fact, he broke out into a sweat, his lighter hair sticking to his forehead a little.

Other students were gathering to watch this fight in the training quadrangle. Malik could only barely see it though, being shorter than some of the other twelve year old students, until he shouldered his way to the front. There he saw the intensity of scene, the tention crackling between Altair and Abbas like lightning. Abbas's glare didn't seem like something you would give a brother. But rather an enemy.

Altair didn't even seem up for the fight. Malik caught him swallowing thickly before saying, "Brother, what I said last night, I-"

"Do not call me 'brother'!" Abbas's screaming, and partly cracking, voice echoed off the walls before he charged at him. If they didn't have everyone's attention, they did now, Malik even caught sight of Al Mualim watching from his window. There were more people coming as well. And Labib seemed puzzled.

Abbas was attacking furiously, and Altair just seemed to barely try dodging and blocking. Again, the latter tried to quell the anger of his fellow student, "No Abbas!"

When Abbas made an attempt to stab Altair, his target was quick to jump to the side, Labib tried to get things under continue. "Now Abbas..."

"He means to kill me, Master!" Altair shouted, looking on the verge of wetting himself.

Of course, does Labib seem to care, or seem to be convinced? Nope. "Don't be dramatic, child. You should learn from your brother's commitment."

Abbas's strikes seemed to puntuate his words. "I am not. His. Brother."

"I told you to help you," Altair nearly shrieked. Malik didn't know if he should find the fight amusing or troubling. Clearly there was more to it that met the eye.

"No," Abbas screamed, "you lied!" His next strike knocked Altair back into the fence, which he almost fell over, with a loud chime of the clashing steel. For a second afterwards, Malik's ear rang.

And now, more Assassins were gathering. Not only students, but now older ones who seemed to be practicing their skills. Some seemed worried while others watched with interest. Some of the students cheered this fight on.

"Defend, Altair, defend!" Labib's voice boomed. Damn he seemed excited about this. It must be pretty boring training novices then.

Altair followed this advice and fought back until he was back in the center of the quadrangle again. He hissed, "I told the truth," and their swords clashed against each other, they were really close now. "I told you the truth to end your suffering, just as I would have wanted mine ending."

"You lied to bring shame upon me!" Abbas snapped, and stepped back to take a pouncing position. His weight shifting back and his sword pointed forward, the blade quivering in the student's shaking grip.

"No!" Altair barely had time to dodge. He tried to fall back, but this proved to be a mistake as the blade's tip caught up and managed to nick him in the side. Malik blinked and next thing he knew, Altair's hand was to his side, staring with pleading eyes at Labib- but once more ignored. He pulled his hand away, and Malik saw the blood there, on his hand and staining his robes. He held out his bloodied hand to Abbas, "Stop this, Abbas, I spoke the truth in the hope to bring you comfort."

"Comfort," Abbas was addressing the crowd now, "to bring me comfort he tells me my father killed himself."

It seemed like the everyone had fallen dead silent. Malik was even was speechless- not that he had been saying anything to begin with. He had heard the bickering and arguments thoughout the whole fight and he didn't know what sort of thing would have someone so worked up, but this was clearly the answer.

But at last, Labib got his head out of the gutter and saw what was happening. "Abbas! Altair!" But it was too late, the fighting had started again. Their swords met with a clang.

"I thought-"

"You thought you would bring shame upon me," Abbas shrieked, his voice was REALLY cracking up (to the point where it could have been humorous if the situation wasn't this serious) at this point, and almost everyone could see the tears running down his face as he circled Altair. When he came at him, he swung his sword wildly, madly, in this, Altair managed to crouch and strike at Abbas's arm, opening a wound.

The sight of blood startled Malik as much the second time as the first.

But Abbas let out a catterwail of a cry and went at Altair again, who ducked under his blade and disbalanced him. Now they both fell to the dirt and grappled, a mess of screaming bloody boys trying to practically kill each other. Malik watched as Abbas jammed his thumb into the wound on Altair's side, causing his victim to practically scream. Then he was holding a knife and pressing it to Altair's neck, the tears running thick down his cheeks as he threatened to kill Altair right then and there.

"Abbas!" The order came. Not from Labib, but rather Al Mualim, who was still at his window. "Put away the knife at once!"

It seemed like the antagonised student's voice grew really small and desperate, "Not until he admits!"

"Admits what?" Altair argued as he wriggled against the firm grip.

Labib climbed over the fence and held his hands out to Abbas, "Now, Abbas. Do as the Master says."

The next words came out in a snarl, "Come any closer and I'll carve him!"

Of course, this was enough to stop the instructor where he stood, not wanting to risk a student's life. Everyone was on edge, and Malik could only watch on the sidelines to see how this would turn out.

"He'll put you in the cells for this, Abbas," Labib told him. "This is no way for the Order to behave. Look, there are civilians here from the villiage. Word will spread." Were there really people from the village? Malik glanced back to see it true.

Abbas was crying now. "I don't care. He needs to say it. He needs to say he lied about my father."

"What lie," the intructor looked from one to the other with confusion. Obviously he hadn't been listening as well.

"He told me my father killed himself." Abbas sobbed, "That he came to Altaïr's quarters to say sorry, then slashed his own throat. But he lied. My father did not kill himself. He left the Brotherhood. That was his apology. Now tell me you lied." He pointed the dagger into Altair's neck, drawing more blood.

"Abbas, stop this!" Al Mualim ordered once more. Malik realized just how serious this must be if the student was challenging the Grand Master. Or he was just very much insane.

"Altair, did you lie," Labib asked, trying to get an answer to settle all of this.

The whole courtyard went silent as everyone waited for Altair to answer.

"Yes," the boy said with defeat, "I did lie..."

It was after that that Abbas sat up on his knees, the weight of the situation seemed be catching up to him, as he dropped the dagger in his hand. It clattered on the ground and he was weeping once more. Even while he weeped, Labib roughly tugged him up by the arm and handed him over to a couple of guards. And a moment later, Altair was too grabbed and taken away to where Malik guessed was the cells.

After all of this, Malik could only stare at the blood stains in the dirt and the blood stained swords and dagger left in the quadrangle. Then over to Labib. Maybe that training instructor could have stopped this if he had called the fight when Altair was first nicked.

That night, when he returned to the room he shared with his father and Kadar, he told them about the fight- chatty as most children are. He still couldn't believe what he had seen. The intensity of the fight. But there was some question he still wondered.

"Father, what happened to Altair's father?"

His dad, Faheem, looked down at his lap and sighed. "You remember the siege, Malik. It was almost a year ago..."

True it couldn't be much longer than that. He nodded.

"Well, Abbas's father was a spy then, and we had our plan to scare away the invaders." He looked from one son to the other as even Kadar sat up and listened. "Umar, Altair's father, snuck into the camp of the invaders and planned a letter and dagger, next dagger would be in the man's groin." Kadar snickered. "It would have worked if his target didn't wake and sound the alarm. To escape, he had to kill a General. They found Ahmet then and tortured the information out of him. The next morning, they sent a messanger and an executioner with Ahmet, and threatened to kill him if we didn't give them Umar to kill."

"And that was it?" Malik asked, he knew he had been hiding then, trying to keep Kadar with him.

"Not exactly," Faheem shook his head, "Al Mualim almost didn't let Umar go. But it was both the man's willingness and the threat of Masyaf starving that got him to go and face his death. They let Ahmet go, and they killed Umar."

Kadar's eyebrows raised, "Did you... did you watch?"

Their dad's gaze dropped back down. "...I wish I hadn't..." He glanced out the window and turned away on his side. "Go to sleep now. It's getting late."

Though Malik did as asked and tried to go to sleep, his thoughts were still swarming. His did really didn't seem to like talking about this. But when he was about to press his questions, he discovered his dad was already asleep, if not then he was a very good faker. So he stared at the ceiling all night. "I wonder what really happened to Abbas's father, then..."

Clearly, his dad wasn't asleep, because he answered, "He left the Order... Now really, go to sleep, Malik..."

Tahdah! Tell me what you think, guys! I was rereading that piece of junk book, The Last Crusade, to get the Altair and Abbas fight correct. Of course, we have Malik as a bystander. I also learned, more or less, that unlike a lot of people claim, Malik's dad was very much alive around this time or so- unless, you know, he was killed on a mission- and not dead like a lot of people say.
Anyways, don't yell at me for next to copying the fight, I tried not to. But I gotta keep the words and actions.