In this community, I spam words.

[nottheproblem]

Who: Ziio, Open
When: 06/13 - Evening
Where: The Academy Library - Or in that area of.
What: By way of a fated book, Ziio arrives in Smash Academy. The lesson that we should all stop reading.
Warning: N/A



What is this.

The pointed question and the most direct one. Also the one that didn't provide an immediate answer. Naturally, the obvious answer was a sanctuary of books - a library. Not that it explained the situation any better. To go from a village in one moment to a library in another. Some would have held a vision responsible, but the imagery too vivid.

And the moment Ziio ran a forefinger over the spine of a book, it was too obviously real. So this was reality. Some sort of reality. An unexplained kind.

The lack of clarification was irritating at best. But if opening a book had been what brought her there, then it seemed logical that opening another - the right one - would take her back to Kanatahséton. Which eventually led to an ever growing pile of books that Ziio had opened and found disappointment in.

In other words, someone was going to have a lot to clean up later.

Comments

[nottheproblem]

She didn't want to. Wait, that was. The temptation to scoff and simply take off was grand and she almost did it. She'd proven once already that she could outrun him. He still couldn't match up to her, as far as she was concerned. Still, it was a temptation that she - in her own Ziio fashion - entertained, but didn't execute.

Plenty of time for running later.

But in the back of her mind, she wondered if that was cowardice. Deliberate avoidance of this man who had once held many things of hers. Trust. Love. Joy. Anguish. If any man had seen the different sides to Ziio, it was certainly Haytham - where Connor wasn't concerned. As the present stood, her son likely knew her better in some ways that Haytham didn't.

"What is it that you-" she'd begun as she turned fully. There was a sharp pause when her dark eyes caught onto his face and for many moments, she could only stare. He'd not sounded any different, but by the greying hair, the lines in his face, and even eyes that had seen much, she'd not expected to see... him...

You are not the Haytham I knew.

"-want," Ziio finally managed to get out, minutely annoyed that while her expression seemed as unfeeling as she'd wanted it to be, she wasn't immune to being caught off guard.

[tacohat]

He caught her look, and wondered what she thought of him now. His features had aged and scars were added--including a severe mark on his neck--but his body was still well-formed and capable. But she had not changed at all, as if eternally young; perhaps only half his age now.

Haytham undoubtedly looked dejected and anxious, feeling as though the slightest pressure would send her away and leaving him wondering if the ghost sighting had really happened at all.

"Only... some time. I promise I will leave you be if you still wish, but that is all I ask for."

He respectfully held his distance, letting her see his open hands that held nothing.

"You burned to death long ago," he added grimly. "Or so I heard. And yet here you are."

Like nothing changed at all.

[nottheproblem]

He only wanted some time. What was she really going to do with hers? She didn't know. There were plans she'd had before, but crossing paths with Connor had circumvented them to some degree. So it seemed she did have some free time. At least for the present, and even for Haytham, regardless of how she still would have preferred to turn her back to him once more and simply walk away.

Or... run.

Her gaze moved onto his hands and though she knew he was likely armed somewhere, she felt no immediate need to protect herself. It helped that for their 'bad blood,' Ziio was mostly certain he'd never lift a hand against her. Unless the man had changed so much in his age that there was no more of 'Haytham' even left. Considering he likely continued living a life of the Templars, she didn't find that to be impossible.

His words struck her when he continued. Struck her much harder than she'd thought. Connor had not gone into detail and she'd not wanted him to. But it was easier to hear it from Haytham than her son. Most likely because Haytham didn't carry the same sad look about him. Not in the same manner, anyway.

"I'd endured no such thing," she confirmed for him, somewhat stiffly. Suspiciously. "I live and breathe, as you do." But she didn't argue that he was wrong, for she knew he wasn't. Yet all the same, it was perplexing, that so many years would be between her and him. As if she'd missed a great amount - and she had.

[tacohat]

"Then you did not die," he echoed, as if having trouble believing that. He rubbed his neck for a moment in thought. He died and remembered every second leading up to it, but she did not?

"Still, I am truly sorry I could not have done something for you..."

He cared about her. Maybe it was true that his long-ago love for her could not quite surpass his dark Templar dreams for the future, but that did not mean he didn't care deeply for her.

But if Ziio had questions, Haytham did not invite her to ask them. He was sure he would not want to answer.

Instead, he put a foot forward, watching carefully to see if she'd allow him to move closer.

[nottheproblem]

Ziio eyed him skeptically. He was apologising to her. There were a good number of things that she imagined he could apologise for and would hold more weight. The idea he was doing so for something she hadn't experienced left her wondering what she should feel. He was sorry. He was sorry? What difference did that really make? Really.

Unsure of what to say, he caught her on silence for a few moments longer. She'd have to talk with Connor about it, she was sure. And he wouldn't want to. Or perhaps she wouldn't need to, after all. Not doing so implied that she was going to take Haytham at his word. Did she really want to do that? Instinct screamed at her in the negative. But considering she'd not only come to a school by way of a book, the first creature she'd met was a talking animal.

There were larger things than any tense history between her and Haytham.

She watched him move, looking a mite more unamused, but didn't turn tail to flee just yet. "Having difficulty seeing me?" Ziio asked, her tone terse and to the point.

[tacohat]

He stopped, looked at her strangely, and let out his breath in a heavy sigh.

"I have not seen you in decades, and the only news I've had of you in all that time was that you had become deceased. So yes, you might say I am. I am having trouble seeing that you are really here and not some stroke of madness or fantastical trick-- which, I'll have you know, has happened once before, though I would rather not go into that detail. If I cannot even stand near you, then so be it, but has our time together meant nothing to you?"

He swallowed his bitter hurt, clenching his hands together behind his back. For a moment he was unable to look at her directly.

"Please, Ziio."

[nottheproblem]

"Haytham-"

Are you an idiot.

It took... the remainder of her discipline to not hiss her words at him. Had their time together meant nothing? If it had, then she wouldn't have sent him off so hastily, so abruptly, and so strongly. She wouldn't have been as hurt as she had been when she discovered his actual roots.

The look of disbelief that passed over her expression was painted so clearly, that had she been closer, the urge to smack him would have equally been present. Her lips parted and as if she had some kind of ready retort, she began to shift. But nothing came. Because saying either way meant admitting to something that Haytham didn't exactly have the right to know.

What difference does it make, really?

"Fine."

Tolerance. It'd been obviously longer for him than it had been for her. She couldn't imagine what she would have felt meeting Haytham years later - provided she hadn't burnt to a crisp. Looking aside from him, she felt more as if she was on display, but she made no effort to further remove herself, or to glare him down. If anything, she felt conflicted. And not just over the odd things he said - like fantastical tricks and what not. But that she had not forgotten him in her heart, as much as she would have liked to.

[tacohat]

"Thank you."

He moved closer, slowly, until he was near enough that he looked down at her. Still about arms length from her, not making any move to touch her or disturb her. At close range, he was more sure of it; the details of her face, right down to the freckles. The smell of her saturated with the earthy scents of woodland life.

But he did not stare too hard out of politeness, and remained fixated on only her face. He supposed she'd probably examine him as well, and wondered what she thought of the changes that time had made to him.

"You have not changed one bit," he said quietly.

[nottheproblem]

Nerves flared up. Nerves, indeed. She couldn't remember feeling that way before. Between them, she'd been the confident one. At least, so she'd thought. Not that she wasn't confident in the present. She still felt like she was the one who held the authority. One could have said she held herself above him and in a way she did. Ziio wasn't blind to the concept that he'd listen to her. That he'd feel he had no other alternative than to abide by her boundaries.

She did take the opportunity to give him a thorough look over. His garb, of course, which seemed to indicate hardly a change in personal style. He was dressed nicely. Always had been, really. Like a man of class and sophistication, a world she didn't know about and didn't particularly give much thought to. It was his world, after all, and not hers.

Eventually her eyes did come back to his face and she took her time in reacquainting herself. Perhaps she stared more than he did, curious over the differences in the man who stood before her in the present and the one she'd known. He had been a victim to age. A victim. Probably aged normally.

Idly she wondered if he ever married. If he ever found the time for completing his life in trivial ways. With his ambitions, probably not.

"Unlike you," she cleverly replied. "Yet age has been kind to you. You sound no different and there aren't so many differences that I can't recognise you."

And his eyes. Eyes that she had adored. Eyes that showed her the genuine sincerity he felt when she assisted him. When she showed him that there was more to life than simply a life of war and strife. But what could she see in those eyes now? Uncertainty, she thought. His own type of wariness. It felt entirely too surreal to stand there with him, and brought with it both discomfort and a wistfulness Ziio had only rarely indulged in.

[tacohat]

"Please, I'm surprised you even noticed, since I have hardly aged at all," he said, managing to force playful vanity into his tone.

He had often imagined what it would be like standing with her once more. But it did not feel the same as he expected, he was not quite over the shock. How could he be, after so many years of separation?

Yet her presence was comforting, just knowing she was alive and unhurt. There would be a better chance for her now. He wished he could stay by her, but he doubted she would ever forgive him. He could only wait for her to order him to leave once more.

He stalled with a question.

"How much do you know? If not the incident, what do you remember?"

[nottheproblem]

What was worse, that she almost smiled at his reply, or that she didn't absolutely hate him in that moment? It was almost as if it was a taste of how things could have been. But that was as cruel as the hand reality had dealt thus far with putting them in such close proximity with one another. The thought of those days, those 'what if's was painful. It wasn't something she could entertain for long.

She had no immediate response for him, but toyed with the idea of simply telling him she'd had enough of his company. He continued along, however, and prevented her from doing any such thing. And she did think it a possibility that it was all a part of his plan.

"I remember enough," were her initial words. "Telling you to leave." Watching you leave. Questioning if what I'd done was right. Knowing I had no other choice. And there was Connor, which made her eye Haytham oddly, for she'd not been so open with him regarding his son. Seemed little point in pretending that didn't happen. She already knew.

"My son," she continued. "A few years with him."

[tacohat]

"I did not intend to encounter you again." The circumstances here had just surprised him. It would not have felt right to turn and leave when he already had her in his sights.

Ah, that other old hurt. That she had bore him a son yet never told him; he had to find out on his own decades later. Did she really think he did not want a son? Or had she known, but hid his existence anyway? How different would have everything turned out, had he known? Would deaths have been prevented? Would his relationship with his son have gone differently?

"Connor is here as well," he supplied, not knowing that she had already met him or that she hadn't given him that name. "...He has grown well."

[nottheproblem]

The circumstances behind Connor's conception and birth were a type of complicated that Ziio had not wanted to bring up. She'd not believed that any such thing would have turned Haytham from his path. But perhaps she would have been wrong. The past was the past, however, and she could not go back to do it another way just to see the consequence.

The Haytham before her, however, already knew of his son. They'd spent 'ample' - or whatever Ziio considered was 'ample' - time together. Doing what, she had not the faintest idea, but she imagined it was no joyous father and son routine outing.

"I'm aw--" Ziio interjected herself and her eyebrows furrowed as she eyed Haytham. "Connor?" The very same 'Connor' who had been mentioned to her twice. Jon and Shadow had both said it. "Why do you call him that? Why is it the people here call him that?"

She might have been minutely irritated by that discovery.

[tacohat]

He gave her a startled look, not quite sure what to make of her reaction. "Connor? Because it's his name, or at least what he's been going by all this time."

And what reason did he have to suspect that Connor had a different name? The hard truth was that he scarcely knew his son at all. The boy had reached full-growth without his father even knowing he existed, had conveyed past traumas and an orphan's bitterness that Haytham could not have been aware of. He supposed that the broken old Assassin Davenport was the only person who might have offered some real semblance of fatherhood in Connor's life, but he was not much aware of those details either.

[nottheproblem]

"That isn't his name."

And she knew that sounded harsh. Or perhaps it was because she didn't know that was the name he'd chosen. Why? Was it somehow better suited to him? Something to do with what he'd gotten himself into, perhaps? She doubted she should be calling her son's devotion to his people into question. It just couldn't be that.

When she realised how tense she grew, how she even thought to lash out at Haytham for something he didn't seem to know the better of, she took a step back, slipped her right foot behind her left. As if she'd meant to run, which once more she entertained.

"But if it's what he wishes to be called, then it will be so."

[tacohat]

He sighed again, holding up his hands in exasperated surrender. "Sorry, I was never informed. That is not what you named him?"

He detected her movement, like she was coiled to flee at any second. He frowned, knowing he was about to lose her again. What words could he say to convince her that she did not need to push him away? In more than two decades he still did not have the answer to that. Ziio was not like others... not like the sheep so easy to control. Of course, that was part of why he had loved her.

[nottheproblem]

She shook her head, once more paused by his questioning. It seemed to be the only thing that really worked to keep her in his midst.

A part of her had wanted to stay. To see what could be said or done. To find some form of closure - if even that. But it was very painful to see him, much less to speak with him. And to think in spite of all that had happened, he still seemed to want her companionship.

Yet it was never him saying he wanted to go. It was always her telling him to leave.

"It isn't what I call him," Ziio admitted. "It seems to be the name he has chosen. He can be called as he wishes to be." But she would still call him by his given name. It was the only way she could address him. His name meant so much, after all, and was such a symbol of his strength and history.

[tacohat]

He thought about asking her what that name was, but gave that line of inquiry up. He figured there was little chance of him being able to pronounce it... he always left matters of Kanien'kehá:ka language up to William Johnson and never adapted his tongue to the words, even in his short weeks with Ziio.

"Have you met him here yet?" he wondered. Knowing that much would help him figure out what issues to avoid discussing. He doubted Connor had anything pleasant to say about him.

[nottheproblem]

The more he asked, the more Ziio began to question herself as to why she'd even answer. If he had a plan, which she was sure he did, then he was pulling it off, and she was letting him. Out of vain hopes? Yes. Perhaps. She couldn't even tell for sure.

"Yes." The answer was concise and direct. "He didn't say much. He said what he needed to, and what he needed for me to know." Then she found her posture relaxing - if it could even be called that - as she motioned to Haytham. "He said you were here. That you two are aware of each other."

[tacohat]

"I see." Except he knew no details. He had some bitter things to say about Connor, but he doubted Ziio would appreciate that. But he had a few kinder observations to say, too.

He lowered his head a bit in thought, returning his hands to their idle position behind his back.

"He grew up noble and strong. You must be proud."

Because he was proud of Connor as well. In a way.

[nottheproblem]

"I am," was her strong reply. Then after a pause, she felt a degree of unease. "I'm not accustomed to seeing him older. Wiser. My son was young when I arrived here."

This Ratonhnhaké:ton is different. My feelings around him are conflicting. I am still his mother, but I am that too late. It's difficult to be faced with him, knowing what he must have endured.

Then she corrected herself. "...Our son." Because she couldn't take credit for all of it. She hadn't yet determined if Connor had taken Haytham's darker ambitions, but Ziio didn't think so. "Do you see much of yourself in him?" It was a surprisingly honest inquiry of her part, one that left her with an expectant look directed to her former lover.

fell asleep while writing this tag last night ._.

[tacohat]

He could not comment on what she had missed in the boy's life. He hadn't been there for it either. Something the two of them now had in common...

He nodded his head slightly and thought it over before looking back at Ziio.

"I see a lot of you in him. And I see definitive traits from the Kenway line... otherwise I might not have believe it when I discovered him. He has great conviction in his beliefs... extraordinarily stubborn, really. There is still much for him to learn. But he is also brave, and though not yet as skilled as I am, he has admirable strength."

Awbuu. You are so cute. Next time I will tuck you in. ♥

[nottheproblem]

She listened to him very carefully and it was the first time in their reunion that Ziio had placed her undivided attention onto him - where one gauging the other was not involved. It was also the first time she didn't feel like turning her back to him and sending him away once more.

Like it or not on her part, Connor was what drew them together, it seemed.

Ziio didn't really notice it, but she'd begun to smile - in that vague fashion - as Haytham continued with his observations. Connor's stubbornness, a trait he had from both sides. Potential, it seemed. And there was something... oddly heart-warming about the way Haytham was praising what they had created.

But could it have been a trap...?

"I was not expecting to hear it, but it sounds as if you're proud also." Simply said, far more expressive than she'd expected it to be, and yet sincere and earnest.

[tacohat]

"Yes, well... though he has a long ways to go, he has those qualities," Haytham returned.

He became distracted by that beautiful little hint of a smile, no doubt because of their current topic. Certainly she hadn't heard yet about the fight to the death, or they certainly wouldn't be standing there talking so casually. He hoped that knowledge stayed far from her.

"I am, although astonished beyond measure, greatly relieved to see you alive and well, Ziio. Whatever else you may think of me, at least know that."

He respected her enough that his wish to change the past and be with her was disproportionate to the relief at simply seeing her saved from a gruesome end. But in the back of his mind he wondered if this miracle could potentially soften Connor into a more forgiving mood, if his mother's death no longer haunted him.

[nottheproblem]

Greatly relieved to see her alive and well, he said. She wasn't expecting those words. Or the kindness that came from behind them, because she knew well enough he stood nothing to gain by saying such things to her. Which meant if he was saying them, he meant them.

To be honest, she couldn't remember a time that Haytham had ever said something to her - or around her - that wasn't exactly what he was trying to convey. To some degree, in the way she held him in the secret stash of her heart, he must have done the same. The difference was that he was willing to be more open about them.

The man had no shame, and why should he? What did he have to lose?

"I hear your words," she acknowledged him with a slow nod. One day, maybe I will be able to say them back to you. "And I assure you that I'm certainly here." Looking aside momentarily, she continued, "I don't doubt that we'll see each other again."

At least until she found the village again. Provided she did.