Assassin's Creed Drabbles

↳ found hope

in which Alexios finds you when you need him the most

ALEXIOS LINGERS IN the shadows —watching, waiting, listening. Those in the agora pointed him to Kresilas's Residence to the south of Kydonia, near the Temple of Artemis Diktynna. Between the clues and the whispers overheard in the cave beneath the Sanctuary of Delphi, his search for Melite has led him here to Messara. Another cultist to fall upon the Spear of Leonidas.

The sea breeze rustles the dry shrubs and carries more whispers. The old fortress one of the guards mentions, looking toward the towers rising along the rocky coast see if he can squeeze out any information. Alexios flexes his fingers, draws in a slow breath, and disappears into the night. He will find Melite at the Kydonian Fort.

The fort is built on the ruins of a lost civilization, and the tunnels beneath wind into the darkness. Alexios follows them until they spit him out into a cavernous room with felled stone columns and wooden scaffolding with a line of iron holding cells. The fort's prison. At the center is a whipping post, and strung up by shackles is a woman, beaten and bloody with a man circling her —Melite. Alexios moves along with the shadows cast by the burning braziers, steadily moving closer.

Blood fills your mouth. Melite's torturer had done a fine job. Your struggles earned you a bloody nose and mouth and three fewer fingernails. Four more, and Melite promised they would start taking fingers and toes. He tilts your head back, and through one strained eye, you can make out his twisted smile. It's the same questions every day. Who is your father? Where is your father? Questions to which you know not the answer and not even lies will suffice to spare you from the pain.

"I told you I don't know!" You cry, voice cracked and strained. The same answer you've given a dozen times over. "I grew up an orphan in the streets of Kyrene." Tears streak your face, carving paths through the dried blood and filth from the endless days. Melite shakes his head and loses the flaying knife on his belt, but Alexios will watch no longer.

The Eagle Bearer surges forward, nigh silent, and thrusts the broken spear up and into Melite's back. The point of the Leonidas spear emerges from the Cultist's chest, bloody but shining in by the firelight of the burning braziers. Melite goes limp in seconds with no resistance, no sound. Alexios pushes the corpse aside, but you shuffle back as much as you can —startled and frightened, unsure if this stranger is your savior or destruction.

Alexios reaches behind him, slowly, sheathing his spear back to its place on his quiver, then lifts his empty hands to show he means no harm. "I'm not going to hurt you," he says, reaching up to unbind your fetters. Your arms drop down, and you rub the broken skin on your wrists —the rush of blood brings throbbing pain.

"I'm Alexios," he says, introducing himself as he kneels in front of you, frowning at the dried blood and bruises on your face. He helps you stand on shaking knees, but there is something strange about his touch —something calling to you, as though you've found something you hadn't known was lost. "Do you have anywhere to go?" He asks, and you shake your head; it's been years since you had anywhere you would dare call home.

HE CAN NOT leave you like this, so Alexios returns to the Adrestia. There is always room for another aboard the old trireme, but above all, Alexios needs to know if you had felt the same spark when his fingertips first brushed against yours. He has no doubt members of the Cult can be cruel for cruelty's sake, but there must be a reason Melite kept you. When your legs can no longer hold you upright, Alexios lifts you into his arms and makes his way down through the city and to the docks, and by the time he reaches the Adrestia, you are fast asleep —or unconscious, he is not sure which it is.

Barnabas and Herodotus are quick to make room when Alexios steps onto the trireme's deck, calling Leda and Iola to help. They will have more skill than he and the others and a kinder touch to tend the open and angry wounds —Leda assures the Eagle Bearer that you will be in good hands and tells him not to linger, for there is little he can do now besides wait.