paradisalogs | (no subject)

Who: Ezio Auditore and youuu
What: Running about sadly.
When: Tonighhhttt.
Where: The roof!
Rating: PG idek

He’s been at a loss for days.

So many others make announcements –– so-and-so is gone, such-and-such has left the Castle. Ezio isn’t sure how to do that. He’s seen many people to their deaths and given them some fashion of last rites, but he’s never informed someone of a death personal to him. Not since his father or his brothers, but even then, it’d gone a little unsaid. It had been in a crisis, when he’d been awake for countless hours and been running non-stop and had blood on his hands.

This was a lazy afternoon, and it happened in utter silence.

He wonders what the last thing he said to them was –– surely for Stephanie it was a goodbye of some sort, a kiss on her cheek, a few wisps of blonde hair escaped from her ponytail and tickling his face. He’d surely grinned and teased her about something as he waved and headed off down the hall, back towards his room. Perhaps she’d left shortly after that, stretched out in bed for an afternoon nap after their lunch date.

Cassandra, he knows what he said to her last –– it was a cheery “a presto” and that pet name he’d started using for her, maialina. He’d finally peeled himself from bed after pressing one last kiss to the tip of her nose. She is different from Italian girls, in some ways, from the modest roundness of her nose to her softer cheeks, her larger eyes… everything about her is special, even her nickname. He’d picked one for her that he hadn’t used on any other girl before, too, because he thought the girl he’d committed himself to deserved that.

And now he’s alone again.

-x-

Ezio walks the line of the castle’s ramparts without even looking, as if he weren’t mere inches from tumbling off the edge and falling to his death. The leather soles of his boots are soft, so the occasional veer to the side isn’t any trouble — his toes just curl around the edge for an instant and he keeps going. It’s an unthinking gesture. He shifts his weight, he corrects himself, he walks.

He has to do something to keep himself busy, even if it’s scaling the castle unharnessed, even if it’s pacing the ramparts like some sort of deranged tightrope walker. If he doesn’t, he’ll drink or mourn or sleep, and right now he doesn’t fancy any. It’s been a long week of that, anyway.

So for now, he indulges in a bit of free-running.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The roof was a fine place to get away from the others, to think, or in Giovanni's case not to. There had been far too many hours spent over books, charts, and maps trying to discover more about the castle and its many strange quirks. And for all that effort he had very little to show from the research beyond a some what greater understanding of the more modern conveniences of the castle and a firm belief that riding that thing called the 'elevator' might not result in injury. A theory not yet tested.

This was a break for him. A chance to take to the roof and, after making certain none were around, to indulge in a little light training. The throwing knife sailed through the air sticking deep into the makeshift wooden target with a resounding thunk. The board was just a piece of scrap left over from some local's project but it made for a sturdy enough target and from the look of the many holes peppering it's surface it had been used for the job for some time now.

It was the slight clicking of the tile beneath the trend of a foot that caused Giovanni to suddenly stiffen and turn with the second blade still in his hand ready to throw, but finding his son instead of some strange creature he smiled and lowered his weapon.

"Ezio."

With greeting offered the blade was given a relaxed almost gentile toss at the target, where it stuck firmly next to the first.

"Doing a bit of wandering?"

It's all too easy to pretend he's seventeen again, hopping down off the rampart to his father's level as if he hadn't been getting up to some serious shenanigans.

"Just a little," he says, flippant. Wandering, as if there was something new or compelling about the same roof he'd been living under for two and a half years, as if one could really wander in a place so familiar. Ezio shrugs it off like nothing, and then fixes his gaze on the target.

Target practice. That's something he hasn't done in a long time.

"And you're out here throwing knives, even when you already have perfect aim? You're making me look terrible."

It's teasing, but only half-hearted.

They had been several years apart but the instincts of a father never faded. The weariness around his son's eyes, the way there had not been a spring in his step when he landed on the lower portion of roofing or a true hint of mirth in the teasing comment... Ezio was upset. He didn't need to ask why. So many had left the caste lately, good people that he had liked but whom Ezio had been truly close to. It must have been a great loss to him.

Instead of speaking on this Giovanni retrieved the throwing knives from their target and held them blunt side to Ezio, feigning a smile with not quite as much difficulty as his son.

"Perhaps you should be the one practicing with them then?"

If Ezio wished to speak about it what better time than with a little father/son knife throwing exercise?

Ezio doesn't hesitate to take them, though once he has them in his fingers, he takes his sweet time to adjust them between his fingers. He turns his eyes to the target.

"Maybe I should be," he says, sizing up the target and then raising a hand to aim, but he lowers it again to reconsider. "You know, I traded these for a crossbow the moment it became easier to come by bolts than blades."

He snorts, almost ruefully.

"It's heavier, though."

"And more difficult to conceal I would think. But more powerful and able to attack from a greater distance. I can see how at times it would prove the better choice."

He spoke as he moved behind Ezio giving him more room to throw should it prove needed. He doubted his son would have a wild aim but if he were as out of practice as he claimed it could never hurt to take precaution. Assuming of course these blades might be launched...

"Do you intend to throw or just caress the blades?"

Ezio still hems and haws, even if he scoffs at his father's remark.

"I'm not," he says. That even sounds kind of dirty, like some sort of euphemism –– caress. Ezio glances back at Giovanni over his shoulder and then turns his attention to the target for the last time. He draws back and throws, hitting the target off-center but square enough that if it were human flesh, it'd likely be a fatal wound. (If not by blood loss, then by infection, anyhow.)

"Quieter than a gun, at least."

The dour mood was in danger of spreading with those clipped remarks of his but they were overlooked. There was a great deal wrong with this place and correcting an attitude or the slightly off way in which his son had aimed would do little good.

Instead he nodded and paced close enough to drop a friendly hand onto Ezio's shoulder.

"Do you want to talk about what has upset you? I know you were very close to those who left."

There's the slightest temptation to brush his father off and give into stoicism, but he doesn't –– he eases up a little, glancing back over his shoulder.

"Talking about it will not bring them back, padre," Ezio says. "I was close to them. They will see each other again, of course. Me? I am five hundred years dead, and there's little chance of seeing each other in the afterlife."

Ezio knows Stephanie and Cassandra think little of Heaven, and he knows his own faith is certainly lacking these days, but he doubts he would have the same destination as them.

Desolation, depression, that was the power of this place and it was far too easy to give into it. He had fallen into the trap himself on several occasions, truly it was impossible not to when you were ripped away from some one so dear.

Still Giovanni's hand remained firmly where it was, a lifeline trying to show through the gentle touch that Ezio was not alone even if he very much felt so now.

"Do you think I ever believed I might see you again? This place does hold the power to send people away but also to bring them back. There is no harm in hoping you might you day see each other again."

He shrugged lightly.

"As for an afterlife, perhaps there is one. I must have come from some where."