smash_logs | In this community, I spam words.

Entry tags:

In this community, I spam words.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

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.

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."

"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.

"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.

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."

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.

"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.

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.

"Yes. It may be inevitable that we run into one another when we see Connor," he said, carefully keeping his tone casual.

He raised a brow, waiting to see if she would press her insistence that he remain far from her... or if bringing their son into it was a mistake. She had gone as far to hide her pregnancy from him, he was not sure if she still intended on keeping their son from him now that he was a grown and capable man.

For many moments she said nothing. Then whatever warmth she'd begun to feel had managed to slip away.

"Stay away from my son."

If that wasn't answer enough for his unspoken questions, there probably wasn't anything more direct about it. And no matter what the case might have been, Haytham had crossed a line. Connor could act on his own, no doubt, but only when she had succumbed to her fate could Ziio allow the possibility of Haytham's influence in her child's life.

No matter how old said 'child' had grown to be.

Haytham's hands clenched behind his back. He was not expecting such an abrupt forbiddance, and for a moment he was unable to articulate words, only frown.

"The boy and I have too much unfinished business for me to cut him off now. He has not told me himself to stay back, so I intend to do no such thing."

...At least, Connor hasn't told him off lately. Connor had warned him off in the strictest of terms after the confrontation with Washington, and Haytham had compliantly kept away from his son for roughly three years after that, until the necessity of protecting Charles brought them together for their finality. The tragedy of it was how close they had come to tying off their bond, but Haytham had pushed a little too hard, schemed a little too much.

Now that Connor allowed him near, and now that Connor did not need to die, he was not about to turn heel if he could help it.

"You'll do so because I'm telling you to."

It was firm and it was hard. She didn't feel she needed to tell him why as frankly, Haytham didn't need to know. It wasn't his place. She didn't particularly care what kind of unfinished business they had. She was already steps into anger when Connor had so confidently told her that he knew who his father was.

In other words, Ziio held a grudge, and not one that was unwarranted. Anything Haytham could want with him couldn't be good and he was nothing short of a storm waiting to be loosed. And when that happened, because she knew it would, it wouldn't be anywhere near her or Connor. Not if she had anything to do with it.

"I won't tolerate you around him," she continued, warning with her eyes, for she felt her tone could only participate in half the battle. "I will stand where I must if it'll keep you at bay."

"Gods, Ziio, be reasonable," he plead. "He is my son. I have no intention of harming him. Only teaching him many things he lacks and aiding one another when we have the same goals."

He spoke quickly in his attempt to convince, feeling himself on the defensive. He was caught in a bad spot. As soon as Ziio appeared, he was likely to immediately lose her, or his son, or both.

"Reasonable," she parroted. "Reasonable. What entertaining words from such a reasonable man."

She could feel the fire swell in her very heart. "You have no right to call him your son. Be that he is or not. Your place is not as his father. You have no position to be instructing him on anything." Defensive. It was all purely defensive. A mother wolf protecting her young, baring her metaphorical teeth, prepared to snap if she needed to.

"The only thing you can teach him is deception and I will die before I allow you that opportunity." Connor was no young child. He could handle himself and Ziio knew it, but with eyes that could only see him as the four year old she had left behind, she couldn't deny that she felt her own insecurities over his well being arise once more.

And perhaps a chunk of it was spite for what Haytham had done to her. A cruel, but necessary tactic.

"He's far too honest and hardheaded to be taught deception, believe me," he muttered. "But there are many truths he has yet to learn. I would see he understands these truths before he irreparably damages the very future he tries to save."

Her anger hurt, and angering her after impossibly getting her back was the last thing he wanted to do, but Haytham felt frustration boil as well. He barely knew his son at all, but now she barely knew him either. To let him go now would be to release all the potential and plans he had invested, leaving Haytham with no advantages whatsoever. He had no connections, no Templar allies, no power. He was a Grandmaster who once secretly had the entirety of the British American colonies within his grasp and now did not have a single holding. Only a son whom shared similar enough aspirations of peace that perhaps he could be made to understand.

It was minutely insulting to hear him. And she almost bit. Almost. "If he is hardheaded, then it'd be something you two had in common." Which was virtually her way of admitting that trying to argue with Haytham would get the opposite side nowhere.

Haytham would do things as he saw fit. And if that was the case...

She drew up her right hand, as if to make her point and nothing further, for though she remained in arm's length of him, she made no intent to touch him. "Try as you'd like," she began calmly, her eyes attentively upon him. "I already know that you will, but know that I will stop you where I feel it is necessary."

"Ziio--"

A mother wolf indeed, poised to rip apart any threat that went near her young. Haytham had no aspiration to get anywhere close to a physical altercation with her.

His frustration ebbed as he understood that he had lost. There was no way he could push Ziio so far that she would attack him in desperation to keep him away. He had made the mistake of pushing too hard, and now had nothing. Whatever progress he might have made would have been destroyed anyway the moment she would likely learn of his attempt to kill Connor. And Connor would surely take his long-lost mother's side.

"Have it your way. I will not approach either of you," he relented quietly.

She was almost surprised. Almost.

For as stiff as she thought she had grown, his words seemed to lift a considerable amount of weight from her shoulders. I had hope in you, Haytham. And I had hope in us. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, but it wasn't the time. Perhaps it never would be.

Her hand lowered and she kept her gaze on him. I might have missed seeing you. Seeing your face. Hearing your voice. I'm not concerned about myself or the fights we will have. But I'm not yet sure if he shares anything with you.

Her words that followed were a little quieter, not filled with the same guarded tone she'd held before. "Thank you, Haytham." She only needed a little more time with Connor. Then perhaps. In some way. In some form. They could resolve the uneasiness between them.

The three of them.

He supposed they were done, then. There was nothing he could say to fix that. He hung his head for a moment, breaking his eyes from her hard gaze.

"Stay well, Ziio," he said. For a long moment he looked like he was about to say more, but thought better of it and kept his mouth closed. For all she might have gone through and the love they once shared, she deserved as much respect as he could give, and he did not have the heart to pressure her. He had already taken advantage of her kindness long ago, and now she knew exactly who he was. He could not do it again. Yet neither could he abandon his Templar vision of the future just for her, though long ago he had come close to considering it.

He turned to leave.

She wanted to say it back and mean it. But she was too conflicted that she couldn't bring herself to. She couldn't stand there and claim she could forgive him, because she couldn't. Regardless of how he'd softened when he saw her. Regardless of how perhaps he had been as much affected as she had been. Except he hadn't, of course.

For all Ziio really knew, that was all a ploy to regain her trust.

She stared at him for a long while and finally, she inclined her head. It was something like a farewell. Except not even that because she had the suspicion that try as she might have to evade him, they'd wind up crossing paths at least once more. And if there had been any truth to his 'threats,' he'd likely be around whenever she was with Connor.

No. Avoiding Haytham wasn't that plausible after all.

Then without another word, no official goodbye, there sat an implied 'see you later,' and if he had walked one way, she walked the opposite. Like history had repeated itself, except instead of watching him leave, she took her own as well, with vain hope that was once locked away still staining her heart.

Stay well, Haytham. At least until we meet again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In this community, I spam words.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

fell asleep while writing this tag last night ._.

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject