Unwoven Fate (Ezio Auditore x Reader)

IV. The Remains of Monteriggioni

(Y/n) had left her horse outside the walls of Florence, making it her priority to rent a room for the night before examining what she had found at her childhood home. The streets of Florence were busting with bards, merchants, artists, guilds and all other civilians of the home city of the Medici.

Well, former home city.

Something was wrong here, the same something wrong that she had missed back in Forlì. These weren't Florentine guards. Their uniforms were red and higher-ranked guards bore the emblem of a bull. It seemed that everywhere she had travelled to in Tuscany thus far had these soldiers patrolling the streets. Something had happened: some form of conflict or siege perhaps?

(Y/n) didn't know a lot about politics; 'it's not a lady's business', her Aunt had always told her. That had always annoyed her. Regardless of the discrimination of her sex, it was the lack of knowledge that irritated her the most, something for her Aunt to lock away right before her eyes, like a child having their favourite toy taken away for their bad behaviour.

These past few days were the only ones in which she was no longer treated as a child for the first time in her life. And it was getting increasingly difficult.

Terracotta rooftops and tall church steeples rose from the ground around her as she made her way to a tavern, paying for her room and having to barter a little with the price, knowing that her money would run out sooner than she would like. Settling down in the bar below, she tore off a piece of bread to wipe around the edge of her soup bowl, mopping up anything that was leftover and leaning over her bowl.

Her bag was settled on her lap, too worried to leave it and its contents alone in her room. She had started using an alias and trying to hide her face as much as possible by now, knowing that her Aunt and Uncle would use their influence to have people searching all over Tuscany. So, now she was Maria: a merchant's daughter attending the communion of her cousin in Venice, only passing through Florence for a time.

"It was a very powerful speech, indeed, but I would have liked to see the stronzo burn." A man grumbled from a table nearby, speaking to his friend between finishing his drink, "He's the one that got the attention of the Borgia and if not for him, perhaps they wouldn't have come to Firenze at all and the Medici would still be here."

(Y/n) could feel her ears perk up almost, turning her head away to listen without suspicion. The name Borgia rang a bell, hadn't her Uncle mentioned travelling to see a Borgia once? She could recall the event: sitting by the open garden doors while embroidering, her Uncle preparing for his journey. He had been gone for two weeks.

But who was this Savonarola? (Y/n) knew of the Medici, of course, but why weren't they here? The Borgia had taken over the city? Had the infamously rich family been executed, imprisoned or exiled?

"I think it's worth listening to Auditore." The other man replied, "He was wanted for a long time so something must have been keeping him busy, Something that motivated his speech, I bet. I was there when his family was killed, you know? I was one of the people that thought they were all guilty of betraying our republic and I saw him calling out in the crowd. He was only a boy, then mind you."

More names: Savonarola, Borgia, Medici, Auditore. She repeated them like a mantra in her mind, engraving them there. She hoped that things would add up as she went along (although, much of that hadn't happened just yet) and these names could come to meet her understanding in time too.

As the men changed their topic, she decided that now was the time to check what she had found back at her childhood home. Travel, shelter and hunger had taken up her priorities until now.