The Apple is light in her hands, once Ziio wrenches it from the King's dead body. So many have died for this… this thing of evil and power and madness and it doesn't seem worth it. It doesn't feel worth the lives lost for the chance to get the cause of the King's madness away from him.
Ziio glances over her shoulder, where the corpse of her son lies. At least, she hopes he is dead. Nobody should be alive with so little flesh left whole, with so much blood seeping from where his skin used to be. She blinks away a tear and looks back to the cause of all this bloodshed. The Apple.
It is power beyond the understanding of any person.
How far does its power reach?
Her village smoulders and smokes, naught but charred ruins, like Lexington and Concord and all the other Frontier towns. The King is dead, his hold on this land broken. The citizens of this country are either dead or impoverished, and the native tribes and nations are almost extinct, at least they are this far east. Haytham is long deceased, like his Assassin brothers and his Templar enemies-temporarily-united. Ratonhnhaké:ton, the son she vowed to love and protect at the cost of even her own life, is gone.
Ziio closes her eyes, and hopes.
Please let things be different.
---
Haytham looked shocked at the venom in her words.
"Ziio, you have the wrong idea entirely--" he began, in his most honeyed tone. She cut him off, furious. Who were they to dig up her people's land? To break their sacred places in search of treasure?
"I do not think I do," she snarled. How dare he! She had the wrong idea? He and his brothers believed that control and order were the way forward, that to oppress would bring peace. They wanted to rule this land, to subjugate, to conquer- and she would not stand by and let that happen.
"I--" Haytham tried again.
"No! I should never have trusted you! Leave, and never return. If you do, I will cut out your heart and feed it to the wolves!"
There. That was the moment Haytham's heart broke. And she hadn't even told him of the child in her womb. She had planned to, certainly, before his fanaticism came to light. And now his evil ways would mean he would never know his son, and his child would never know their father.
It took only four short years for everything to end.
Fire. Fire, everywhere.
Ratonhnhaké:ton screamed for her, trying to lift the burning logs off her, succeeding only in scarring himself. He wailed for her, the heat from the flames drying his tears almost instantly.
She begged him to leave, and told him with her last breaths how much she loved him, how she would watch over him. Before the house collapsed, one of her cousins wrenched her son away, saved his life as her own ended.
No.
Ziio opens her eyes. No, that is not what will happen. Ratonhnhaké:ton deserves-- deserved more than to see his mother's death. He is-- was her son, he would not have such a traumatic life if she had any input.
And with the Apple, she does.
---
"Mother?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asked, wiping the sweat from her brow. "Are you all right?"
Her son was a strong young man now, courting a lovely Cree girl who didn't mind that he looked European. After all, he was one of the best-- if not the best-- hunters in the region, and helped translate during some of the Iroquois meetings with men like William Johnson. Still, despite their best efforts, it seemed that their village would be sold and Ziio was sure that she was going to die from this illness, whatever it was.
"I love you," Ziio said. "Take care."
She fell asleep, slowly and peacefully, and did not wake up again.
Perhaps…
Ziio scours the future of this particular scenario. It looks promising at first: Ratonhnhaké:ton will eventually become an important diplomat for their people, and help the Colonists in their fight against the British.
Their land will be sold, to Haytham's cult. The cave will be excavated. Ratonhnhaké:ton will meet his father, and they will come to blows more often than not. Her daughter-in-law will die during childbirth, the children she carries dead along with her. Ratonhnhaké:ton will never fully recover from the loss of the family he did not have, and Haytham is murdered when he visits his son and the British strike.
Ratonhnhaké:ton dies alone, after being consumed by vengeance, and spends the last thirty years of his life in the deepest sorrow Ziio has seen in a living person.
Never.
Ziio tries again. Sickness and war take what she tries to give her son and their village time and time again, and she begins to despair. Until she has an idea.
Perhaps in the future, after the war…
---
Ratonhnhaké:ton was taken as a slave when he was thirteen, in a raid that killed his mother.
His masters were intrigued by him. Half-caste, they said as they decided that those braids made him look like a woman. Half savage, they said as they defiled his body in a way no person should have to suffer. Half human, they said, dressing him up like a doll, correcting his speech. Half civilised, they said as they trained him to dance and entertain the guests that would undoubtably love this new, exotic mistress of the night.
The masters were right. Eunuchs were always popular, especially ones as rare as they were handsome.
He lasted until age twenty-six, when he slit his own throat with a client's razor.
Despicable!
Ziio does not have words for how horrible these scenarios are. Slavery is a common theme, as is death and more illness, and she looks forward a few centuries instead. Surely their people cannot be oppressed forever?
---
Ziio did not cry until after Ratonhnhaké:ton's train was a mere speck in the distance.
"I'll come home safely," he had promised.
Like Haytham, he lied. Their bodies were never recovered from the beaches of Normandy. At least they were both honoured equally after their sacrifice.
"This was the last war," the people at the memorial service said. "The war to end them all."
Further.
She is sure that this next attempt is going to be the one. It must be. There is only so long she trusts herself to hold this thing and refrain from corruption. She will not be a mad Queen. She cannot allow that to happen.
---
Ziio sat with Haytham over coffee as they waited for their son to get back from school. It was the last day, but he was still going to be late getting home.
"Edward joined the archery club," Ziio explained. "He loves it. Says it's something both our cultures share, and it makes him feel proud of his heritage. They're having a bit of a party this afternoon."
"If he were really proud, he wouldn't drink so much coffee," Haytham gave her a wry smile. "Tea is a proper Englishman's tipple."
"Says the man who loves his country so much he lives in America," she quipped back.
They laughed and joked, keeping to small talk until Edward shut the front door.
"I'm home!"
"Living room!" Ziio called back. "You packed this morning, right?"
Edward shouted an affirmative, and thundered upstairs to retrieve his belongings.
"Now, I want him back on Christmas Eve. Noon. Not one minute past," Ziio said, as Haytham rose to get his jacket and shoes.
"I know. After all, I have my parents and Charles to spend the holidays with… you know you're always welcome, don't you?"
"I know," Ziio said. "It's our tradition. We'll be along after Boxing Day."
"Did I hear you say Grandpa Ed will be there?" Edward asked, nearly falling down the last couple of steps. Haytham nodded, and Edward's face lit up.
"I'm sure that makes up for having to spend more than three days in Charles' and Spado's presence," Haytham said. "They're staying until the New Year."
Edward's grin got even bigger. He adored his grandfather. It was hard not to, really. Edward Kenway (senior) always had a multitude of interesting stories, and was astoundingly relaxed about… well, everything. Even Edward (junior)'s hard-to-impress friends thought he was incredibly cool.
"Awesome."
Ziio watched her ex and her son drive until the car reached the end of the road and turned the corner, and she took a deep breath. Something felt… wrong.
It took only a few days for the wrongness to develop into an acute anxiety. The solar flares were getting worse, power outages becoming more common. Maybe the Mayans were right about this apocalypse thing.
It will be fine. Desmond Miles is the saviour. The spirits said so.
No, she was being silly. It was the twenty-first, and tomorrow would be the twenty-second, and she would see her son on the twenty-fourth.
Still, she called her son anyway.
"I love you," Edward said. "Don't worry so much, the news said it was all going to be fine. It's all a hoax."
"I know," Ziio replied. "Just in case, though. Just in case something happens and we don't have our Christmas, I love you."
The power went off for the last time after the call ended. Less than half an hour later, the sky brightened considerably, and it didn't look like half eleven at night any more.
No, the world was saved by Desmond… The spirit said so!
Ziio needs the happy ending. Why isn't it working?
And then she realises.
The spirit said Ratonhnhaké:ton had a destiny to fulfil. He will do something that will help the saviour and everything will be all right.
If she could only find that thing…
There's not enough time and she doesn't know what she's looking for, but she tries anyway until she realises that even if she can find the destined action Ratonhnhaké:ton must perform, the Apple is not that powerful.
All these scenarios are mere projections. She, herself, is a projection. This is not a realisation, but the Apple giving her the knowledge she needs to fix things.
The signs have been there all along, but she ignored them. She is too young. The King's most heinous acts are those her son has grown to fear. This is nothing more than a delusion.
Ratonhnhaké:ton's delusion. He is alive.
Ziio runs to him, strokes what is left of his face. It is not right to prolong his pain. He might not be in danger of dying, but he can feel pain and she cannot inflict such suffering on her precious child.
"I love you," she says, and lets the Apple correct itself.
---
Ziio wakes up in her longhouse, knowing she is going to die. She cannot remember how, but she knows her death will be today.
Ratonhnhaké:ton is small and cuddles into her side. She prepares her last words in her head as she gives him breakfast and helps him dress and braids his hair and gives him and extra hug.
"Go on," she says, when he asks to play hide-and-seek. "Be careful."
She hopes, vainly, that nothing bad will happen, that the feeling in her gut is just a feeling.
When the village is set alight, she wishes she had been able to remember what happened. She could have prevented these deaths. Why did the spirits not allow her to remember before Washington's soldiers came?
Actually, perhaps that was the point, she thinks, as the logs fall on her. Perhaps Ratonhnhaké:ton is not the only one with a destiny. Perhaps this, too, is fated.
"I love you," she says. "Leave me. I cannot escape. Please go. I will always be with you in spirit."
Ratonhnhaké:ton sobs and wails and ignores her, and screams as another villager, a cousin of theirs, hears her pleas and drags her precious boy to safety.
Ziio closes her eyes, and wonders if she's imagining the feeling of cold, impossibly light metal clasped in her hands.
Substitute Reality 1/1
The Apple is light in her hands, once Ziio wrenches it from the King's dead body. So many have died for this… this thing of evil and power and madness and it doesn't seem worth it. It doesn't feel worth the lives lost for the chance to get the cause of the King's madness away from him.
Ziio glances over her shoulder, where the corpse of her son lies. At least, she hopes he is dead. Nobody should be alive with so little flesh left whole, with so much blood seeping from where his skin used to be. She blinks away a tear and looks back to the cause of all this bloodshed. The Apple.
It is power beyond the understanding of any person.
How far does its power reach?
Her village smoulders and smokes, naught but charred ruins, like Lexington and Concord and all the other Frontier towns. The King is dead, his hold on this land broken. The citizens of this country are either dead or impoverished, and the native tribes and nations are almost extinct, at least they are this far east. Haytham is long deceased, like his Assassin brothers and his Templar enemies-temporarily-united. Ratonhnhaké:ton, the son she vowed to love and protect at the cost of even her own life, is gone.
Ziio closes her eyes, and hopes.
Please let things be different.
---
Haytham looked shocked at the venom in her words.
"Ziio, you have the wrong idea entirely--" he began, in his most honeyed tone. She cut him off, furious. Who were they to dig up her people's land? To break their sacred places in search of treasure?
"I do not think I do," she snarled. How dare he! She had the wrong idea? He and his brothers believed that control and order were the way forward, that to oppress would bring peace. They wanted to rule this land, to subjugate, to conquer- and she would not stand by and let that happen.
"I--" Haytham tried again.
"No! I should never have trusted you! Leave, and never return. If you do, I will cut out your heart and feed it to the wolves!"
There. That was the moment Haytham's heart broke. And she hadn't even told him of the child in her womb. She had planned to, certainly, before his fanaticism came to light. And now his evil ways would mean he would never know his son, and his child would never know their father.
It took only four short years for everything to end.
Fire. Fire, everywhere.
Ratonhnhaké:ton screamed for her, trying to lift the burning logs off her, succeeding only in scarring himself. He wailed for her, the heat from the flames drying his tears almost instantly.
She begged him to leave, and told him with her last breaths how much she loved him, how she would watch over him. Before the house collapsed, one of her cousins wrenched her son away, saved his life as her own ended.
No.
Ziio opens her eyes. No, that is not what will happen. Ratonhnhaké:ton deserves-- deserved more than to see his mother's death. He is-- was her son, he would not have such a traumatic life if she had any input.
And with the Apple, she does.
---
"Mother?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asked, wiping the sweat from her brow. "Are you all right?"
Her son was a strong young man now, courting a lovely Cree girl who didn't mind that he looked European. After all, he was one of the best-- if not the best-- hunters in the region, and helped translate during some of the Iroquois meetings with men like William Johnson. Still, despite their best efforts, it seemed that their village would be sold and Ziio was sure that she was going to die from this illness, whatever it was.
"I love you," Ziio said. "Take care."
She fell asleep, slowly and peacefully, and did not wake up again.
Perhaps…
Ziio scours the future of this particular scenario. It looks promising at first: Ratonhnhaké:ton will eventually become an important diplomat for their people, and help the Colonists in their fight against the British.
Their land will be sold, to Haytham's cult. The cave will be excavated. Ratonhnhaké:ton will meet his father, and they will come to blows more often than not. Her daughter-in-law will die during childbirth, the children she carries dead along with her. Ratonhnhaké:ton will never fully recover from the loss of the family he did not have, and Haytham is murdered when he visits his son and the British strike.
Ratonhnhaké:ton dies alone, after being consumed by vengeance, and spends the last thirty years of his life in the deepest sorrow Ziio has seen in a living person.
Never.
Ziio tries again. Sickness and war take what she tries to give her son and their village time and time again, and she begins to despair. Until she has an idea.
Perhaps in the future, after the war…
---
Ratonhnhaké:ton was taken as a slave when he was thirteen, in a raid that killed his mother.
His masters were intrigued by him. Half-caste, they said as they decided that those braids made him look like a woman. Half savage, they said as they defiled his body in a way no person should have to suffer. Half human, they said, dressing him up like a doll, correcting his speech. Half civilised, they said as they trained him to dance and entertain the guests that would undoubtably love this new, exotic mistress of the night.
The masters were right. Eunuchs were always popular, especially ones as rare as they were handsome.
He lasted until age twenty-six, when he slit his own throat with a client's razor.
Despicable!
Ziio does not have words for how horrible these scenarios are. Slavery is a common theme, as is death and more illness, and she looks forward a few centuries instead. Surely their people cannot be oppressed forever?
---
Ziio did not cry until after Ratonhnhaké:ton's train was a mere speck in the distance.
"I'll come home safely," he had promised.
Like Haytham, he lied. Their bodies were never recovered from the beaches of Normandy. At least they were both honoured equally after their sacrifice.
"This was the last war," the people at the memorial service said. "The war to end them all."
Further.
She is sure that this next attempt is going to be the one. It must be. There is only so long she trusts herself to hold this thing and refrain from corruption. She will not be a mad Queen. She cannot allow that to happen.
---
Ziio sat with Haytham over coffee as they waited for their son to get back from school. It was the last day, but he was still going to be late getting home.
"Edward joined the archery club," Ziio explained. "He loves it. Says it's something both our cultures share, and it makes him feel proud of his heritage. They're having a bit of a party this afternoon."
"If he were really proud, he wouldn't drink so much coffee," Haytham gave her a wry smile. "Tea is a proper Englishman's tipple."
"Says the man who loves his country so much he lives in America," she quipped back.
They laughed and joked, keeping to small talk until Edward shut the front door.
"I'm home!"
"Living room!" Ziio called back. "You packed this morning, right?"
Edward shouted an affirmative, and thundered upstairs to retrieve his belongings.
"Now, I want him back on Christmas Eve. Noon. Not one minute past," Ziio said, as Haytham rose to get his jacket and shoes.
"I know. After all, I have my parents and Charles to spend the holidays with… you know you're always welcome, don't you?"
"I know," Ziio said. "It's our tradition. We'll be along after Boxing Day."
"Did I hear you say Grandpa Ed will be there?" Edward asked, nearly falling down the last couple of steps. Haytham nodded, and Edward's face lit up.
"I'm sure that makes up for having to spend more than three days in Charles' and Spado's presence," Haytham said. "They're staying until the New Year."
Edward's grin got even bigger. He adored his grandfather. It was hard not to, really. Edward Kenway (senior) always had a multitude of interesting stories, and was astoundingly relaxed about… well, everything. Even Edward (junior)'s hard-to-impress friends thought he was incredibly cool.
"Awesome."
Ziio watched her ex and her son drive until the car reached the end of the road and turned the corner, and she took a deep breath. Something felt… wrong.
It took only a few days for the wrongness to develop into an acute anxiety. The solar flares were getting worse, power outages becoming more common. Maybe the Mayans were right about this apocalypse thing.
It will be fine. Desmond Miles is the saviour. The spirits said so.
No, she was being silly. It was the twenty-first, and tomorrow would be the twenty-second, and she would see her son on the twenty-fourth.
Still, she called her son anyway.
"I love you," Edward said. "Don't worry so much, the news said it was all going to be fine. It's all a hoax."
"I know," Ziio replied. "Just in case, though. Just in case something happens and we don't have our Christmas, I love you."
The power went off for the last time after the call ended. Less than half an hour later, the sky brightened considerably, and it didn't look like half eleven at night any more.
No, the world was saved by Desmond… The spirit said so!
Ziio needs the happy ending. Why isn't it working?
And then she realises.
The spirit said Ratonhnhaké:ton had a destiny to fulfil. He will do something that will help the saviour and everything will be all right.
If she could only find that thing…
There's not enough time and she doesn't know what she's looking for, but she tries anyway until she realises that even if she can find the destined action Ratonhnhaké:ton must perform, the Apple is not that powerful.
All these scenarios are mere projections. She, herself, is a projection. This is not a realisation, but the Apple giving her the knowledge she needs to fix things.
The signs have been there all along, but she ignored them. She is too young. The King's most heinous acts are those her son has grown to fear. This is nothing more than a delusion.
Ratonhnhaké:ton's delusion. He is alive.
Ziio runs to him, strokes what is left of his face. It is not right to prolong his pain. He might not be in danger of dying, but he can feel pain and she cannot inflict such suffering on her precious child.
"I love you," she says, and lets the Apple correct itself.
---
Ziio wakes up in her longhouse, knowing she is going to die. She cannot remember how, but she knows her death will be today.
Ratonhnhaké:ton is small and cuddles into her side. She prepares her last words in her head as she gives him breakfast and helps him dress and braids his hair and gives him and extra hug.
"Go on," she says, when he asks to play hide-and-seek. "Be careful."
She hopes, vainly, that nothing bad will happen, that the feeling in her gut is just a feeling.
When the village is set alight, she wishes she had been able to remember what happened. She could have prevented these deaths. Why did the spirits not allow her to remember before Washington's soldiers came?
Actually, perhaps that was the point, she thinks, as the logs fall on her. Perhaps Ratonhnhaké:ton is not the only one with a destiny. Perhaps this, too, is fated.
"I love you," she says. "Leave me. I cannot escape. Please go. I will always be with you in spirit."
Ratonhnhaké:ton sobs and wails and ignores her, and screams as another villager, a cousin of theirs, hears her pleas and drags her precious boy to safety.
Ziio closes her eyes, and wonders if she's imagining the feeling of cold, impossibly light metal clasped in her hands.