They ignore him when he returns to the city, dressed as a slave. He walks with groups of others, hides in plain sight. All of the citizens of Eden wear bright, flowing clothes in many styles and colors. Elaborate jewelry adorns their arms, necks and ears. In his plain white robes with his hood pulled low over his head, he is invisible.
He finds Menrva sitting on the grass just outside of the small dormitory she shares with other students, interacting with a small device that puts words and pictures in the air.
When she doesn't notice him standing there, Enoch clears his throat.
“Enoch?” Menrva says in alarm. It gains the attention of some curious nearby students, and Menrva quickly stands, her posture straight and commanding.
“You will follow me, slave,” Menrva says loudly. It is enough to dissuade the others from watching, and Enoch follows her, head down as she enters the dormitory. She leads him into a small room and shuts the door before turning to him, her small hands reaching to pull the hood down from around his head.
“Enoch, that was dangerous, you shouldn't – what happened?”
Her eyes focus on the small scar above his lips, cautious fingers brushing against it.
“It was nothing. A training accident,” Enoch responds, pressing his lips to her fingers.
“Let me heal you.”
“No, Menrva. They would know.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On the second evening at the cabin, Ezio returns from a day of hunting on the frontier with the skins of four wolves and a bite wound on his right arm. Desmond can see the blood staining the ivory fabric of his hunting shirt even by the dim light of the fire, and puts a pot of water on to boil.
“Dude, didn't you see the sign? Don't feed the wolves,” Desmond jokes.
The Italian shrugs, unconcerned. He holds up the largest of the wolf skins.
“This old wolf made me work for it. He had his pack attacking me all at once, from many different directions. I had dispatched two of his pack mates when this one launched himself at me from above. He bit down and did not let go until he died. I shall have his skin made into a hat.”
Desmond huffs, already pulling back Ezio's sleeve to check the damage. It looks worse than it actually is; fortunately Ezio's bracer took the brunt of it. There are a couple of puncture wounds where the bracer meets the skin, but they are no longer bleeding and are not deep enough to require stitches. He rips a bit of fabric off the edge of his shirt and pours some of the boiling water on it, waving it around in the air to remove some of the heat before cleaning the wound.
“Not sending you to that hack of a doctor for this,” Desmond says, ripping another piece of fabric off of his shirt and wrapping the dry piece of fabric around the bite wounds.
“You are like a mother hen, my friend. I will be fine.”
Desmond takes the skins from Ezio and hangs them to dry.
“Did you manage to kill anything we could actually eat? Because I'm really not in the mood for wolf.”
Ezio smirks in response, pulling a pouch over his shoulder in which he has three young hares, already gutted and skinned. Desmond takes the skins that Ezio had rolled and tied with twine and hangs them up with the wolf skins. They are beginning to collect quite a few, all small game. Desmond plans on making a trip into town to trade them fairly soon, they are starting to reek.
Having skewered all three hares on a stick, Ezio sets them up on a spit over the coals of the fire, turning them slowly. The smell of roast hare soon saturates the air, and Desmond finds his mouth watering, even though he does not like game meat. Something about the pure simplicity of it all just gets to him every time. He goes into the cabin to retrieve Ezio's guitar and a couple of bottles of room temperature ale, preparing for a quiet night by the fire with good food, good music and good company.
That plan is shot the second he exits the cabin and sees Achilles standing by the fire, locked in an icy glare with Ezio. Achilles shifts his attention to Desmond as soon as he approaches, and Desmond starts counting backwards in his head the number of days that Connor has been gone for, and comes up with 'oh shit' for an answer.
“You knew, didn't you?” Achilles accuses, both hands gripping the top of his cane. “You said that you meant no harm to my assassin, and yet you knew he was going to be imprisoned and sentenced to death.”
“Listen my friend,” Ezio starts, but is quickly cut off by a scathing glare from Achilles.
“Don't dare try your honeyed tongue on me, assassin. I have told you both before, I am too old for games. Did you know?”
Desmond frowns and sets the guitar and bottles of ale down carefully away from the fire. So much for that.
“Yeah,” he responds after a moment. “Yeah, we knew, but look. It's not anything that we could interfere in. Some things just have to happen.”
“Are you saying that Connor's death is something that 'just has to happen'. Because that sounds like harm to me, boy.”
Achille's twists off the head of his cane, and then there is a blade up against Desmond's neck. Ezio already has one of his own hidden blades released and is stepping forward, but Desmond marginally shakes his head. Ezio backs up a little, but does not retract his blade.
“No! Look, tomorrow you will go to New York and with Stefan and the recruits and you will free him. That's what is supposed to happen, and we're not going to interfere with that.”
Achilles barks out a laugh that is as cynical as it is insincere.
“Didn't you ever stop to think that by your very presence, you are already interfering?” Achilles removes his blade from Desmond's neck, but does not back away. “Connor sent all his recruits to Montreal on assignment before he left for New York. I would have advised him against it, but I was pre-occupied at the time if I recall, trying to determine what two assassins from another time were doing on my homestead.”
Desmond meets Ezio's eyes across the fire. All the color has drained from the Italian's face. Desmond does not need a mirror to know that he must look the same way.
“Connor is not going to die tomorrow,” Achilles says. Desmond tries not to notice the way Ezio's throat jumps or the whitening of his knuckles as the Italian clenches his hands. “You will ensure it. Both of you.”
It occurs to Desmond for the first time that Connor might actually die, and that if he did, it would be their fault. Just by being here, they've already affected the timeline. There's nothing for it. They have to help. Desmond meets Ezio's eyes, and the Italian offers a short nod of agreement. They are on the same page, at least.
“We will help... but we can't be recognized by Connor. Not yet, anyway.”
Achilles considers this for a moment before nodding.
“Eat. Pack your things. Then meet me back at the manor house.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
One hour later finds both Desmond and Ezio in the hidden assassin's den at the manor house. Ezio's attention is immediately drawn to an old book laying open on the desk, as Achille's fumbles through a chest of assassin's robes in various colors.
“Fortunately, you are both of similar size and stature, and should fit well in some of Connor's robes,” Achilles says, pulling a darker set out of a chest, which he hands to Desmond. “This was made for Connor by a tailor in Charleston, and was received as a trade. I don't think he's ever worn this set. Connor prefers the traditional white.”
Desmond takes the clothes with a nod of acknowledgement, and starts getting undressed. No time like the present, and he'd be dishonest to himself if he didn't admit to being partially intrigued. There was no official assassin's uniform in the 21st century; that had been something done away with by the end of the second world war. Most modern assassins wore street clothes, jeans, a good pair of running shoes, and a jacket with a hood that sat low on the forehead when it was pulled up. Long sleeves were a must to hide a hidden blade, and Desmond knew at least four different ways to conceal a side arm.
He still finds himselfhey are cut similar to the clothing that Connor normally wears, just dyed in blue and brown colors with a dark brown hood. With the hood up and from a distance, he should be unrecognizable. At least, he could only hope.
Achilles pulls another set of clothes from the chest, “from Jamestown,” he says. They are flashier than the clothes he handed to Desmond, mostly white with a red undercoat, and hands it to Ezio, who takes the set from him absently, attention still focused on the book in front of him.
“Signore,” Ezio says, his voice tight with emotion. “How did you come by this book?”
The tone of Ezio's voice has Desmond curious, and he pauses in a state of half dress to see what the other man is on about. A quick look over Ezio's shoulder reveals a sketch of the man himself, older, sitting on a bench outside of the Piazza della Signoria, the city square in Florence where his family was executed. It is a candid sketch, and by the expression on Ezio's face, forever captured on paper, the deaths of his family was not far from his mind at the time it was drawn. Desmond recognizes the style of the sketch as well as the orderly handwriting in the notes on the page as the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, a friend of Ezio's for most of the man's life, and he places a hand on the older man's shoulder in a silent show of support. It is a stark reminder to both of them that they are separated by centuries from all that they've known and loved.
“It has been in the hands of the assassins since your death. I believe your grandson took it to Russia with him, where it spent some time there before it came into the hands of the assassins who came over to the colonies. At one point, the brotherhood held many of his other works as well; paintings, and the like. But they have been lost to greed, templars and time, along with many other things our brotherhood once treasured.”
Ezio's breathing is heavy, and a long moment passes before he speaks.
“Leonardo was a good man. A good friend. It is hard for me to look at this book knowing that this is all that remains.”
“You should take it then. When we come back, it is yours. I believe it was yours at one point anyway,” Achilles responds, clapping Ezio briefly on the back.
Ezio runs his fingers across the sketch briefly before closing the book.
“No, signore. I believe this should stay here, in the brotherhood. It does no good to dwell on what is past... it is the future that is important now.”
“Suit yourself. It will be here if you change your mind.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Achilles has to wake the carriage driver, who is not at all pleased about a trip to New York City in the dark on roads frequently patrolled by redcoats, but is quickly agreeable once the situation is explained. Everyone on the homestead owes a debt of some sort or another to Connor, and it is important that they reach New York before dawn break. Desmond has already agreed to take out any guards on the rooftops, where Ezio, having more experience with ranged weaponry, will be counted on to loose that all important arrow to sever the rope of Connor's noose. It is exactly how Desmond remembers it going down in the animus, but they will be taking the place of Connor's recruits. Afterwards, they plan to fall back while Connor takes on Thomas Hickey, and leave for the homestead separately.
Wearing his dark long hooded assassin's coat, he is virtually unrecognizable from the Desmond that Connor knows, and anyway, he doubt that Connor is going to be paying attention to anything other than the locations of Hickey, Washington and the executioner. It is the best plan they have, anyway. The only wildcard that Desmond can think of is Haytham. He doesn't quite remember from the animus if Haytham was present at the execution. Connor did not see him, but Connor was far more focused on preventing Washington's assassination. Whatever the case, they cannot afford a confrontation. He has already warned Ezio to stay well away from the man if he notices him.
Desmond watches the Italian as he brushes down the front of his long waist coat, flattening the fabric into place, before pulling the white hood up and over his head.
“You look good,” he says, and then coughs into his fist because even though they have that *thing* going that he doesn't want to put a name to (he tells himself it is just the result of being stuck in this strange situation together combined with a disturbingly-in-need-of-therapy-narcissistic attraction and nothing to do with actual feelings because, no. Not thinking about that.) he is not a girl and he's not going to start talking like one.
“So, uh, you look good,” Desmond says again, and then pinches his own leg in hopes that the flash of pain will force him to grit his teeth and therefore keep his damn mouth shut.
Ezio smiles and blows him a kiss, and all Desmond can think is that he's had his hand around the man's cock twice now, and Ezio can still get him to blush. No one has even pinged his radar since...
No. Not thinking about that either.
Ezio sits directly across from him in the carriage next to Achilles, and as soon as Achilles falls asleep, Ezio keeps trying to catch his eye, smiling and making obscene gestures with his hands and mouth and Desmond resigns himself to a very long and uncomfortable ride into New York.
He does manage to close his eyes for a little while though with great effort, and regrets it about an hour later when he is rudely awoken by a hard jerk of the carriage and the cracking sound of a gun being fired.
Ezio must have been awake the whole time, because he is out of the carriage before Desmond even has a chance to draw his sword. Desmond follows with Achilles, and finds himself being run down by a man on horseback pointing a revolver at them. He pushes Achilles down to the ground just as the man fires, pellet tearing into the door of the carriage, and from the ground, swipes his sword out towards the front leg of the attacker's horse as he comes around for another pass. The horse pitches forward, launching its rider to the side, and Desmond jumps on top of him, plunging his hidden blade into the base of the man's neck. The horse then rears and runs off into the woods.
Desmond takes a second to notice that his attacker was dressed as a commoner, not a soldier, when another horse comes trotting around the side of the carriage. Desmond pulls out a flintlock pistol, one that he borrowed from the manor, but the rider is slumped forward across the neck of the horse, unmoving and most likely dead, having been hit in the head with a throwing knife. Ezio's work.
“Thieves,” Achilles spits out. The old man shakes his head in disgust, and then goes to check on the coachman. Fortunately, the coachman turns out to be fine. Not so fortunately, the horse pulling their carriage was shot in the flank, just above her right foreleg.
Ezio comes around the side and tries to calm the one horse that is still standing, pulling the dead man off of it.
It takes Ezio and the coachman a full half an hour to transfer the harness, driving bits and blinders from one horse to the other, Ezio gently leading the mare with the gunshot wound in her flank to the side of the road, where she collapse with a pitiful sound.
“Whatdy'a think?” The coachman asks, his expression grim.
Ezio pats the mare's head with a sigh.
“She is bleeding too fast. I am sorry, signore. Desmond...”
Desmond, having just killed another man with ease, points his pistol at the dying mare's head and hesitates.
“Desmond, please. She is in pain.”
He closes his eyes when he pulls the trigger, and then promptly turns around and throws up. It is only later that he realizes how very fucked up he actually is.
Fill: Every hour God sends, part 13
He finds Menrva sitting on the grass just outside of the small dormitory she shares with other students, interacting with a small device that puts words and pictures in the air.
When she doesn't notice him standing there, Enoch clears his throat.
“Enoch?” Menrva says in alarm. It gains the attention of some curious nearby students, and Menrva quickly stands, her posture straight and commanding.
“You will follow me, slave,” Menrva says loudly. It is enough to dissuade the others from watching, and Enoch follows her, head down as she enters the dormitory. She leads him into a small room and shuts the door before turning to him, her small hands reaching to pull the hood down from around his head.
“Enoch, that was dangerous, you shouldn't – what happened?”
Her eyes focus on the small scar above his lips, cautious fingers brushing against it.
“It was nothing. A training accident,” Enoch responds, pressing his lips to her fingers.
“Let me heal you.”
“No, Menrva. They would know.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On the second evening at the cabin, Ezio returns from a day of hunting on the frontier with the skins of four wolves and a bite wound on his right arm. Desmond can see the blood staining the ivory fabric of his hunting shirt even by the dim light of the fire, and puts a pot of water on to boil.
“Dude, didn't you see the sign? Don't feed the wolves,” Desmond jokes.
The Italian shrugs, unconcerned. He holds up the largest of the wolf skins.
“This old wolf made me work for it. He had his pack attacking me all at once, from many different directions. I had dispatched two of his pack mates when this one launched himself at me from above. He bit down and did not let go until he died. I shall have his skin made into a hat.”
Desmond huffs, already pulling back Ezio's sleeve to check the damage. It looks worse than it actually is; fortunately Ezio's bracer took the brunt of it. There are a couple of puncture wounds where the bracer meets the skin, but they are no longer bleeding and are not deep enough to require stitches. He rips a bit of fabric off the edge of his shirt and pours some of the boiling water on it, waving it around in the air to remove some of the heat before cleaning the wound.
“Not sending you to that hack of a doctor for this,” Desmond says, ripping another piece of fabric off of his shirt and wrapping the dry piece of fabric around the bite wounds.
“You are like a mother hen, my friend. I will be fine.”
Desmond takes the skins from Ezio and hangs them to dry.
“Did you manage to kill anything we could actually eat? Because I'm really not in the mood for wolf.”
Ezio smirks in response, pulling a pouch over his shoulder in which he has three young hares, already gutted and skinned. Desmond takes the skins that Ezio had rolled and tied with twine and hangs them up with the wolf skins. They are beginning to collect quite a few, all small game. Desmond plans on making a trip into town to trade them fairly soon, they are starting to reek.
Having skewered all three hares on a stick, Ezio sets them up on a spit over the coals of the fire, turning them slowly. The smell of roast hare soon saturates the air, and Desmond finds his mouth watering, even though he does not like game meat. Something about the pure simplicity of it all just gets to him every time. He goes into the cabin to retrieve Ezio's guitar and a couple of bottles of room temperature ale, preparing for a quiet night by the fire with good food, good music and good company.
That plan is shot the second he exits the cabin and sees Achilles standing by the fire, locked in an icy glare with Ezio. Achilles shifts his attention to Desmond as soon as he approaches, and Desmond starts counting backwards in his head the number of days that Connor has been gone for, and comes up with 'oh shit' for an answer.
“You knew, didn't you?” Achilles accuses, both hands gripping the top of his cane. “You said that you meant no harm to my assassin, and yet you knew he was going to be imprisoned and sentenced to death.”
“Listen my friend,” Ezio starts, but is quickly cut off by a scathing glare from Achilles.
“Don't dare try your honeyed tongue on me, assassin. I have told you both before, I am too old for games. Did you know?”
Desmond frowns and sets the guitar and bottles of ale down carefully away from the fire. So much for that.
“Yeah,” he responds after a moment. “Yeah, we knew, but look. It's not anything that we could interfere in. Some things just have to happen.”
“Are you saying that Connor's death is something that 'just has to happen'. Because that sounds like harm to me, boy.”
Achille's twists off the head of his cane, and then there is a blade up against Desmond's neck. Ezio already has one of his own hidden blades released and is stepping forward, but Desmond marginally shakes his head. Ezio backs up a little, but does not retract his blade.
“No! Look, tomorrow you will go to New York and with Stefan and the recruits and you will free him. That's what is supposed to happen, and we're not going to interfere with that.”
Achilles barks out a laugh that is as cynical as it is insincere.
“Didn't you ever stop to think that by your very presence, you are already interfering?” Achilles removes his blade from Desmond's neck, but does not back away. “Connor sent all his recruits to Montreal on assignment before he left for New York. I would have advised him against it, but I was pre-occupied at the time if I recall, trying to determine what two assassins from another time were doing on my homestead.”
Desmond meets Ezio's eyes across the fire. All the color has drained from the Italian's face. Desmond does not need a mirror to know that he must look the same way.
“Connor is not going to die tomorrow,” Achilles says. Desmond tries not to notice the way Ezio's throat jumps or the whitening of his knuckles as the Italian clenches his hands. “You will ensure it. Both of you.”
It occurs to Desmond for the first time that Connor might actually die, and that if he did, it would be their fault. Just by being here, they've already affected the timeline. There's nothing for it. They have to help. Desmond meets Ezio's eyes, and the Italian offers a short nod of agreement. They are on the same page, at least.
“We will help... but we can't be recognized by Connor. Not yet, anyway.”
Achilles considers this for a moment before nodding.
“Eat. Pack your things. Then meet me back at the manor house.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
One hour later finds both Desmond and Ezio in the hidden assassin's den at the manor house. Ezio's attention is immediately drawn to an old book laying open on the desk, as Achille's fumbles through a chest of assassin's robes in various colors.
“Fortunately, you are both of similar size and stature, and should fit well in some of Connor's robes,” Achilles says, pulling a darker set out of a chest, which he hands to Desmond. “This was made for Connor by a tailor in Charleston, and was received as a trade. I don't think he's ever worn this set. Connor prefers the traditional white.”
Desmond takes the clothes with a nod of acknowledgement, and starts getting undressed. No time like the present, and he'd be dishonest to himself if he didn't admit to being partially intrigued. There was no official assassin's uniform in the 21st century; that had been something done away with by the end of the second world war. Most modern assassins wore street clothes, jeans, a good pair of running shoes, and a jacket with a hood that sat low on the forehead when it was pulled up. Long sleeves were a must to hide a hidden blade, and Desmond knew at least four different ways to conceal a side arm.
He still finds himselfhey are cut similar to the clothing that Connor normally wears, just dyed in blue and brown colors with a dark brown hood. With the hood up and from a distance, he should be unrecognizable. At least, he could only hope.
Achilles pulls another set of clothes from the chest, “from Jamestown,” he says. They are flashier than the clothes he handed to Desmond, mostly white with a red undercoat, and hands it to Ezio, who takes the set from him absently, attention still focused on the book in front of him.
“Signore,” Ezio says, his voice tight with emotion. “How did you come by this book?”
The tone of Ezio's voice has Desmond curious, and he pauses in a state of half dress to see what the other man is on about. A quick look over Ezio's shoulder reveals a sketch of the man himself, older, sitting on a bench outside of the Piazza della Signoria, the city square in Florence where his family was executed. It is a candid sketch, and by the expression on Ezio's face, forever captured on paper, the deaths of his family was not far from his mind at the time it was drawn. Desmond recognizes the style of the sketch as well as the orderly handwriting in the notes on the page as the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, a friend of Ezio's for most of the man's life, and he places a hand on the older man's shoulder in a silent show of support. It is a stark reminder to both of them that they are separated by centuries from all that they've known and loved.
“It has been in the hands of the assassins since your death. I believe your grandson took it to Russia with him, where it spent some time there before it came into the hands of the assassins who came over to the colonies. At one point, the brotherhood held many of his other works as well; paintings, and the like. But they have been lost to greed, templars and time, along with many other things our brotherhood once treasured.”
Ezio's breathing is heavy, and a long moment passes before he speaks.
“Leonardo was a good man. A good friend. It is hard for me to look at this book knowing that this is all that remains.”
“You should take it then. When we come back, it is yours. I believe it was yours at one point anyway,” Achilles responds, clapping Ezio briefly on the back.
Ezio runs his fingers across the sketch briefly before closing the book.
“No, signore. I believe this should stay here, in the brotherhood. It does no good to dwell on what is past... it is the future that is important now.”
“Suit yourself. It will be here if you change your mind.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Achilles has to wake the carriage driver, who is not at all pleased about a trip to New York City in the dark on roads frequently patrolled by redcoats, but is quickly agreeable once the situation is explained. Everyone on the homestead owes a debt of some sort or another to Connor, and it is important that they reach New York before dawn break. Desmond has already agreed to take out any guards on the rooftops, where Ezio, having more experience with ranged weaponry, will be counted on to loose that all important arrow to sever the rope of Connor's noose. It is exactly how Desmond remembers it going down in the animus, but they will be taking the place of Connor's recruits. Afterwards, they plan to fall back while Connor takes on Thomas Hickey, and leave for the homestead separately.
Wearing his dark long hooded assassin's coat, he is virtually unrecognizable from the Desmond that Connor knows, and anyway, he doubt that Connor is going to be paying attention to anything other than the locations of Hickey, Washington and the executioner. It is the best plan they have, anyway. The only wildcard that Desmond can think of is Haytham. He doesn't quite remember from the animus if Haytham was present at the execution. Connor did not see him, but Connor was far more focused on preventing Washington's assassination. Whatever the case, they cannot afford a confrontation. He has already warned Ezio to stay well away from the man if he notices him.
Desmond watches the Italian as he brushes down the front of his long waist coat, flattening the fabric into place, before pulling the white hood up and over his head.
“You look good,” he says, and then coughs into his fist because even though they have that *thing* going that he doesn't want to put a name to (he tells himself it is just the result of being stuck in this strange situation together combined with a disturbingly-in-need-of-therapy-narcissistic attraction and nothing to do with actual feelings because, no. Not thinking about that.) he is not a girl and he's not going to start talking like one.
“So, uh, you look good,” Desmond says again, and then pinches his own leg in hopes that the flash of pain will force him to grit his teeth and therefore keep his damn mouth shut.
Ezio smiles and blows him a kiss, and all Desmond can think is that he's had his hand around the man's cock twice now, and Ezio can still get him to blush. No one has even pinged his radar since...
No. Not thinking about that either.
Ezio sits directly across from him in the carriage next to Achilles, and as soon as Achilles falls asleep, Ezio keeps trying to catch his eye, smiling and making obscene gestures with his hands and mouth and Desmond resigns himself to a very long and uncomfortable ride into New York.
He does manage to close his eyes for a little while though with great effort, and regrets it about an hour later when he is rudely awoken by a hard jerk of the carriage and the cracking sound of a gun being fired.
Ezio must have been awake the whole time, because he is out of the carriage before Desmond even has a chance to draw his sword. Desmond follows with Achilles, and finds himself being run down by a man on horseback pointing a revolver at them. He pushes Achilles down to the ground just as the man fires, pellet tearing into the door of the carriage, and from the ground, swipes his sword out towards the front leg of the attacker's horse as he comes around for another pass. The horse pitches forward, launching its rider to the side, and Desmond jumps on top of him, plunging his hidden blade into the base of the man's neck. The horse then rears and runs off into the woods.
Desmond takes a second to notice that his attacker was dressed as a commoner, not a soldier, when another horse comes trotting around the side of the carriage. Desmond pulls out a flintlock pistol, one that he borrowed from the manor, but the rider is slumped forward across the neck of the horse, unmoving and most likely dead, having been hit in the head with a throwing knife. Ezio's work.
“Thieves,” Achilles spits out. The old man shakes his head in disgust, and then goes to check on the coachman. Fortunately, the coachman turns out to be fine. Not so fortunately, the horse pulling their carriage was shot in the flank, just above her right foreleg.
Ezio comes around the side and tries to calm the one horse that is still standing, pulling the dead man off of it.
It takes Ezio and the coachman a full half an hour to transfer the harness, driving bits and blinders from one horse to the other, Ezio gently leading the mare with the gunshot wound in her flank to the side of the road, where she collapse with a pitiful sound.
“Whatdy'a think?” The coachman asks, his expression grim.
Ezio pats the mare's head with a sigh.
“She is bleeding too fast. I am sorry, signore. Desmond...”
Desmond, having just killed another man with ease, points his pistol at the dying mare's head and hesitates.
“Desmond, please. She is in pain.”
He closes his eyes when he pulls the trigger, and then promptly turns around and throws up. It is only later that he realizes how very fucked up he actually is.
“Requiescat in pace.”