Fantastic! In this part... Altair is on the struggle-bus. uvu;; --
Malik disappears to another back room, and Altair is left alone in the starlight streaming from the lattice. There are no other brothers spending the night in the Bureau tonight, and a part of Altair is glad for it--his outburst had been loud, almost foolish, and verging on panic, none of which were good examples for the Assassin's that used to be of lower rank than him.
(Though, granted, now they're his rank or higher. But that's another matter entirely.)
And now, out of the sight of everyone else, he has leave to practice and learn his limits. He resists the urge to scowl or bite his lip, instead standing and rolling his shoulders, easing the tightness from several days of bedrest out of the muscles, stretches from head to toe, back, legs, arms, reaches for his toes. At every movement of his back, his... wings.... flutter and flare, in movements that feel as easy as swinging his arms and yet foreign at the same time. Everything is lighter--from the swing of his arms, to the pull of gravity when he jumps; Malik was likely right about his bones. That would cause problems of its own, to be dealt with later, but first things first...
Altair takes a bracing breath and spreads both wings wide, turns his head and body to examine them in the moonlight falling from the lattice above; after a moment's hesitation, he touches them, runs his fingers through the feathers down to the skin and muscle and bone below, reaches around to run the tips of his fingers over the junction of wing-base to his back. It feels strange, unfamiliar, and yet perfect, and Altair scowls, before realizing that they're trembling where they're spread, too weak to be held outspread for too long.
He furls them, grumbling mentally, and feels new muscles twinge and quiver underneath the skin of his back, before shaking his head.
This will.... require work.
--
Sunrise finds Altair still shirtless in the middle of the courtyard, but with the addition of his hidden blade and his sword; his throwing knives are discarded in their sheaths (with the addition of a few more punctures in the tapestries and wooden beams of the Bureau), the Assassin feinting and attacking at invisible enemies, brow furrowed in concentration. He's trying to acclimate himself to the weight of steel again, the way his wings pull at the air and resist forward lunges and swings that turn the body unless they're folded tightly to his back; at some point, Malik comes out into the courtyard, glares at the holes, his knives, and Altair, before throwing his hand up in the air and retreating back into the inner room, grumbling to himself about destructive, self-serving fools.
Altair practices until his arms shake, then during his rest, opens and closes his wings, attempting to strengthen the muscles in his back; whenever he hears the footfalls of a brother overhead, he retreats back into the room he'd recovered in, hiding from their eyes instinctively. There's no question now that this is the work of the Apple, but that's also no reason to spread the word out for anyone to hear--as stoic as the Order is supposed to be, the brothers certainly gossip like women.
(Altair tries to not think about what would happen if he cannot complete his mission to kill de Sable, for Al Mualim has no-doubt heard about his... transformation by this point. He'd apparently made quite the spectacle, and there was no way Malik could have shut the mouths of every Assassin that had passed through the Bureau at that time.)
(Another part of him even wonders if he can even call them brothers anymore; is he even human now? He has the wings and voice and hollow bones of a bird, for all that he's mostly the form of a man, and with the Eagle's Vision, and the way he fights, Altair wonders in the back of his head if he's truly become the demon that the rumors call him.)
(That thought is enough to make him tear at his feathers until he bleeds, scatter down and secondaries across the cushions and rage silently, cursing at the world for it's ill-fortune; it seems to be laughing at him: first Kadar and Malik's friendship, next his rank, then his pride, and now his humanity and abilities. He wonders if there will be anything left of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad by the end of this, or if he'll become as wild as the eagles that nest atop the highest towers and have to be killed the same as any animal gone mad.)
He practices with blades until he cannot, and then with his (accursed)weak wings until he cannot, and eats when Malik storms over and shoves food at him, and then goes back to practice--he refuses to be useless. He refuses to fail.
He cannot fail now. There's too much to do still for him to.
you can't take the sky from me [4/?]
--
Malik disappears to another back room, and Altair is left alone in the starlight streaming from the lattice. There are no other brothers spending the night in the Bureau tonight, and a part of Altair is glad for it--his outburst had been loud, almost foolish, and verging on panic, none of which were good examples for the Assassin's that used to be of lower rank than him.
(Though, granted, now they're his rank or higher. But that's another matter entirely.)
And now, out of the sight of everyone else, he has leave to practice and learn his limits. He resists the urge to scowl or bite his lip, instead standing and rolling his shoulders, easing the tightness from several days of bedrest out of the muscles, stretches from head to toe, back, legs, arms, reaches for his toes. At every movement of his back, his... wings.... flutter and flare, in movements that feel as easy as swinging his arms and yet foreign at the same time. Everything is lighter--from the swing of his arms, to the pull of gravity when he jumps; Malik was likely right about his bones. That would cause problems of its own, to be dealt with later, but first things first...
Altair takes a bracing breath and spreads both wings wide, turns his head and body to examine them in the moonlight falling from the lattice above; after a moment's hesitation, he touches them, runs his fingers through the feathers down to the skin and muscle and bone below, reaches around to run the tips of his fingers over the junction of wing-base to his back. It feels strange, unfamiliar, and yet perfect, and Altair scowls, before realizing that they're trembling where they're spread, too weak to be held outspread for too long.
He furls them, grumbling mentally, and feels new muscles twinge and quiver underneath the skin of his back, before shaking his head.
This will.... require work.
Sunrise finds Altair still shirtless in the middle of the courtyard, but with the addition of his hidden blade and his sword; his throwing knives are discarded in their sheaths (with the addition of a few more punctures in the tapestries and wooden beams of the Bureau), the Assassin feinting and attacking at invisible enemies, brow furrowed in concentration. He's trying to acclimate himself to the weight of steel again, the way his wings pull at the air and resist forward lunges and swings that turn the body unless they're folded tightly to his back; at some point, Malik comes out into the courtyard, glares at the holes, his knives, and Altair, before throwing his hand up in the air and retreating back into the inner room, grumbling to himself about destructive, self-serving fools.
Altair practices until his arms shake, then during his rest, opens and closes his wings, attempting to strengthen the muscles in his back; whenever he hears the footfalls of a brother overhead, he retreats back into the room he'd recovered in, hiding from their eyes instinctively. There's no question now that this is the work of the Apple, but that's also no reason to spread the word out for anyone to hear--as stoic as the Order is supposed to be, the brothers certainly gossip like women.
(Altair tries to not think about what would happen if he cannot complete his mission to kill de Sable, for Al Mualim has no-doubt heard about his... transformation by this point. He'd apparently made quite the spectacle, and there was no way Malik could have shut the mouths of every Assassin that had passed through the Bureau at that time.)
(Another part of him even wonders if he can even call them brothers anymore; is he even human now? He has the wings and voice and hollow bones of a bird, for all that he's mostly the form of a man, and with the Eagle's Vision, and the way he fights, Altair wonders in the back of his head if he's truly become the demon that the rumors call him.)
(That thought is enough to make him tear at his feathers until he bleeds, scatter down and secondaries across the cushions and rage silently, cursing at the world for it's ill-fortune; it seems to be laughing at him: first Kadar and Malik's friendship, next his rank, then his pride, and now his humanity and abilities. He wonders if there will be anything left of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad by the end of this, or if he'll become as wild as the eagles that nest atop the highest towers and have to be killed the same as any animal gone mad.)
He practices with blades until he cannot, and then with his (accursed)weak wings until he cannot, and eats when Malik storms over and shoves food at him, and then goes back to practice--he refuses to be useless. He refuses to fail.
He cannot fail now. There's too much to do still for him to.