Because the plot bunnies won't leave me be.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Sometimes he watched (and he wondered).

Alfredo looks so much like his predecessor that it was often hard to tell that he was a different man (one thing Antonio would never admit out loud: he sometimes mentally referred to Alfredo by his predecessor's name).

As he observed he noticed; they're just alike.

They had the same smile, for one, happy and full of life (sometime he wonders if anyone else notices how that smile had a tendency to become more sly and mischievous; or maybe that smile wasn't meant to be seen by anyone else). And their hair falls the same way (though the predecessor's hair was longer...and darker). And their eyes hold that same shine (he's seen the predecessor's eyes only once, as he'd always kept them covered, but he remembers the deep blue shine).

Alfredo is so much like his predecessor.

It hurts to think about it.

But he still watches Alfredo (he owes his old...friend, no...Antonio had no right to call him that, at least that much).

But the lines between Alfredo and the predecessor are starting to blur. And its becoming harder and harder for him to see Alfredo as Alfredo rather than the predecessor.

Why? Why were they so alike?

He can almost see Alfredo dawning that dark skin; the only scars running across his back and torso. He can almost see the beads and feathers decorating Alfredo's long dark hair. He can see a pelt tied around Alfredo's shoulders, the head of the beast pulled over Alfredo's own as those blue eyes stare through empty sockets.

The predecessor wore the skin of many; sometimes making those skins his own has he morphed and formed into something else (only he seemed to notice how often Alfredo scratched and poked at his skin like it didn't fit; it's in those rare moments that he wonders if Alfredo can do the same).

Antonio quickly decides he doesn't like the way Alfredo's skin looks on him. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, creamy pale skin on Alfredo would always be inferior to the Natives skin.

Because Alfredo was like his predecessor.

Maybe Antonio was biased. Maybe he didn't even have the right to form an opinion (something he remembers to tell himself every time he finds himself staring at Alfredo). But he swears that Alfredo is just a mask. Alfredo, from ignorance to arrogance, was a lie he told the world. Because there was no other way Alfredo can both be and differ from his predecessor.

Alfredo wasn't Alfredo; he just couldn't be.

Arthur would curse Antonio if he told. Arthur would insist that Alfredo was just 'Alfred and no one else,' he would swear and curse at Antonio, insist that Alfredo was the child that Arthur believed he raised.

But Antonio knows. He believes with all his heart and soul that Alfredo was anything but a child when Arthur raised him.

Tino would say different. Tino would assure Alfredo was only a child when he and Berwald first found him. But Antonio knew better; he knew that Alfredo would've been a child only in body when he was found (Antonio, more than anyone, knew what the predecessor was capable of).

The world would laugh at him if he ever told.

He wanted to tell Maria (Mexico) once, but stopped himself before he could. Maria hated him more than anyone else in the world (not that he blamed her, he did kidnap her younger brother and herself just before killing their father); she'd neither believe her uncle was alive nor that he was Alfredo of all people. He'd only cause her to hate him more.

So, bitterly, he keeps the secret to himself.

Alfredo was a great deal like his old self (that tricky little fox who outran death). Yet he hides well enough that only those who really knew him could tell (sometimes Antonio thinks he can see Matthias throwing Alfredo and his brother, Matthew, the same suspicious glaces; but he never brings it up).

So for now he'll watch Talli from afar. Waiting for the personification of the land Natives walked to throw off his mask and laugh at the success of his latest trick; because Talli would laugh at Arthur's horrified face.

Antonio would just wait. And wonder.