Diary

[eaglet]

Who: Connor and you!
What: Connor looking over his Christmas present.
When: Jan. 13, afternoon
Where: Castle lobby
Rating: ??? harmless probably
Note: Prose or brackets, I'll follow you!

Connor doesn't spend a lot of time in the castle.

Even now, in the winter, he prefers sleeping outside in a blind or a makeshift shelter. On colder nights, he sleeps in the stables. Only on the coldest nights does he sleep in his own room; it's not because he's not accustomed to sleeping indoors, but because the castle itself makes him uneasy. The castle is a god, he thinks, and he is not ready to leave his own beliefs behind to pledge fealty to another.

Because of this, he was several days late finding his "gift" from the castle. Casually set on a table in his room, it was there -- the diary he'd thought had burned up with everything else on that day.

He hadn't read through it in years, not since it burned, but he still remembered everything. Still, he can't help but take it down to the lobby to read again. The diary is very obviously not the journal provided by the castle -- it's larger, bound in leather, the ink faded on the earlier pages. One edge is singed.

Connor is sitting, bent over the book and reading intensely. Ordinarily he would do this outside -- perhaps somewhat incongruously, he finds more privacy outdoors than in the castle. But it's cold, and numb fingers aren't quite helpful in turning pages.

Comments

[hellofist]

For someone who doesn't even live in the castle anymore, Cass finds her way back here pretty often. There are a lot of people here she likes to talk to after all, and it makes more sense for her to come back then for a bunch of people to walk all the way out to the house she shares with Steph and Tim.

It's generally less crowded that way, too.

Still, it's a bit surprising to see Connor inside, but pleasant ever for the strangeness. So of course she heads straight over to him, curious about what it is he's got there that has him so wrapped up in reading.

"Hi Connor," she says softly once she's close enough, keeping her voice quiet to avoid startling him. "Must be good book."

[eaglet]

Connor looks up when he hears her, mouth curving up subtly for just a moment. It's not as though he's not glad to see her, but the diary (or the book, as Cass said) is distracting him somewhat. He sits back, gesturing vaguely at it.

"It was left to me by the god of this place, or at least I have heard that it does this for Christmas," he says, then looks down at the pages, absently smoothing them out. "I wonder, then, if the god is a Christian god to celebrate Christmas in such a way."

Which doesn't exactly explain if it's a good book or not, though he doesn't really bother trying to hide his attempts at avoiding the question. Not from Cass.

[hellofist]

Well that's an interesting thought.

"Think anyone can... celebrate it, though. I did." And her knowledge of religion is lacking, to say the least. "Maybe it's just nice, sometimes."

It's possible Cass is the only person in the castle that counts an indestructible monster that likes to bite people as a nice thing to give anyone, but Tokyo is still a high point of her time here. So sure, the castle is nice for giving out things to make their time here more exciting.

Still, the book is the more interesting thing her, so she waves a hand at it.

"What does it say?"

[eaglet]

It's a nice thought. Connor didn't have a problem with spending Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other holiday with his friends here, though he's not sure if he counts it as actually celebrating. It's more being supportive of his friends, he thinks, and he's always happy to participate in their own celebrations.

He remembers when she says that that she can't actually read, and he frowns at the thought. That's how they'd met -- he'd promised to teach her to read, or at least help her in the endeavour. That didn't really pan out, though. And whose fault was it?

He turns the book in her direction so she can see the pages. "You tell me," he says encouragingly, though it's written in a flourished hand and not block letters, so maybe that's moot.

[hellofist]

Truthfully, it's just as much Cass' fault as anyone else's. More, probably, because how can you actually teach someone who would much rather be out scaling walls or punching monsters in the face? She's put off her reading lessons and that's on no one but her.

In the past few months she's taken it a little more seriously, so when Connor offers Cassandra actually takes him up on it. She reaches out, tilts the book towards herself a little more... and promptly frowns at what she sees.

"You can read that?"

Are those actual letters?

[eaglet]

It's not really a reaction that he was expecting, so he smiles a little despite himself, though he's quick to shake his head to indicate he's not really laughing at her. Since that would probably set her interest in literacy back quite a bit, he thinks.

"I am sorry," he says, reaching to take the book back. "I have forgotten that penmanship is much different in my time than in yours."

He's seen enough in the journal to be able to figure that out, anyway. The people from Cassandra's time are much looser in their handwriting; much less precise. When he writes in the journal, it's always with conscious effort to keep it as simple as possible, though it's a challenge.

"It is a journal -- not the sort that the god of this place provides us; it is not magical. A diary."

[hellofist]

She just smiles, because there's no ill intent there and she's not about to get bent out of shape over something as simple as that. Besides, it's Connor. There's no way he'd be insulting her on purpose.

Pulling her own chair over, she sits down beside him and leans over to look at the writing again, still curious.

"Not yours, though. Whose?"

[eaglet]

He wonders if he should be keeping a diary, though. Somewhere to put his thoughts down -- the journal isn't good enough for that; what if the filters were to break? The residents' general reliance on this place's magic is worrisome, and he doesn't want that to happen to him.

"My father's," he says, glancing over at her. "I have not seen it since I was a child, but it is the same."

[hellofist]

That makes this a little less fun, then. After the last time they talked about Connor's father, she kind of doubts he's looking forward to learning everything that might be in that journal. It could be useful information, it probably is, but that won't make it easy to read.

She reaches over for his shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

"Learn anything, yet?"

[freeslider]

Wade knows nothing about Connor's habits, as a matter of fact. The castle is a big place and, even with the attempt it had made at shoving them all into slightly closer living quarters, it was still easy to miss people from time to time, to the point that it took leaving the castle entirely to meet the boy in question face to face. It's a fact she laments a little. Maybe she should get to know people more here, but she's already been treated to what it feels like to have people leave. It isn't a nice feeling.

But she's not jaded enough yet to try to hide from her lot, so she's wandering through here more often than not.

She veers toward Connor's familiar huddled shape the moment she recognizes him, her eyes noting the large book he's looking over as she gets a bit closer.

"Hey. What'cha got there?"

[eaglet]

Apart from his unease with the magical nature of the castle and what living inside of it implied, Connor's just not used to structures so big. He'd spent most of his life in Kanatahséton and its longhouses, then six months with Achilles at his manor. Living in the manor had required an adjustment period, but the castle was somewhat beyond his ability to deal with. It was just too large -- to many floors, too many corridors, too many people.

It's something he knows he'll have to get over, if he's to mingle with the colonists in Boston. But as for now, it's a block he has yet to overcome.

He looks up when he hears a familiar voice, mouth curving up subtly in greeting. "Hello. It is something the castle has left me, I think. I have heard it does that for Christmas, so perhaps that is what has happened here. I certainly did not wish for it."

[freeslider]

It's not something Wade would think twice about unless prompted. While she's a country girl at heart she's also lived in cities her whole life, and the scope of her surroundings did not frequently dawn on her beyond the bizarreness of the architecture.

She invited herself into the seat next to him, although keeping a polite distance she sensed he needed, one leg curled underneath her.

"You just found it in your room?"

[eaglet]

He nods, gesturing at the book in front of him. "Yes. I do not often go there, so I do not know how long it has been waiting for me."

It wasn't there the day after Christmas, when he'd stopped by to look at the gift that Molotov had left him. Or at least he didn't notice it at the time. Why would he be looking for a book when she said her gift was something larger? But he'd found it several days later, just sitting on a table. He'd recognised it instantly.

Connor leans back, smiling faintly as he watched Wade. "Did it leave anything for you?"

[freeslider]

"Not that I know of. Maybe I don't rate the castle's attention yet." Wade makes a face - a wry sideways tug of her lips and a slight frown - that clearly seemed to display that she wasn't sure if this thought is fortunate or disappointing.

[eaglet]

It's sort of a sobering thought, that only those who caught the castle's attention are those who received gifts. What is it that Connor had done to deserve its attention? It makes one wonder.

"How long have you been in this place?" he asks, instead of voicing any of his worries.

[freeslider]

"Hmmm. Six months, I think? Somewhere around there. It's weird to think about..." she said, trailing off a little in thought. Six months in one place, without her friends.

"What about you?"

[eaglet]

"Nearly a year," he says, idly smoothing the pages of the book. "I arrived to this place on the fifth of March, which I remember because it was also the fifth of March back where I am from."

He's not heard of anyone so far who arrived in these same circumstances, but he's also never really brought it up before either.

[assassino]

Ezio heads towards Connor with a sense of purpose. That's what you do when you have something pressing to talk about, and all, and Ezio isn't shy about coming up behind Connor and dropping a parcel right where he's reading. It's rolled up and slid inside a velvet sheath, the end poking out to make the contents evident: a thick scroll of paper large enough to be framed and hung over a stately fireplace.

"You'll want to see this," Ezio says, pointedly.

Like he gave Connor a choice.

[eaglet]

Connor was pretty engrossed in his reading, thank you, his eyes flicking up before he sits back in his seat with the most sour look in the world. Folding his arms, he lets the disapproving silence settle and speak for him before he nods toward the sheath with a jerk of his head.

"What is it?" he says, though maybe his posturing isn't very convincing because he doesn't wait for an answer, just leans forward to take the scroll from the velvet.

[assassino]

Ezio looks almost smug.

"It's a family tree."

[eaglet]

Connor's gaze slides sideways in Ezio's direction, the implication being that maybe Ezio should stop fucking with him. He's a kid, not a moron.

"This is paper, not a tree."

[assassino]

Ezio sits down next to him, moving in to sit next to Connor. He reaches over to roll it open, revealing a whole chart of interwoven names.

"It is a family tree, boy, it shows a family's lineage. You can see your parentage on it."

[eaglet]

Connor lets go of the paper when Ezio reaches to take hold of it, watching curiously. He's never actually seen anything like this before, though it reminds him of the chart in Achilles's basement.

At the mention of parentage, he glances reflexively at the open book that the family tree is now laying on, swallowing, but doesn't say anything about that. "Whose family is it? Yours?"

Why would he care about the Auditore line... actually, no, that's a lie; despite his disappointment in who Ezio turned out to be in person, it's still interesting. Stephanie said that Ezio's sister was also an Assassin, which had devolved into pure rumour by Connor's time.

[assassino]

"You could say that," Ezio says. He points out his own name, which is more or less at the top of the chart, and then slides his finger over to his wife. "That is my wife Sofia. I haven't met her yet but knowing my tastes, she will be beautiful, with big..."

A grin and a gesture at his own chest, hand a considerable distance out. Breasts, Connor. Breasts.

Then he's moving on just as fast, following his son's line down, and down, and down.

[eaglet]

Connor is only partially successful in suppressing his eyeroll. Yeah, yeah, big breasts. He's got it, Ezio. Jerk.

But he looks back to the chart, frowning as Ezio points down the line, past many names that aren't even familiar to him.