Amara - Assassin's Creed

Last edited 05/04/2014

Haytham December 2 1725 d 16 September 1781 (55)
Connor April 4 1756
Marianne 1751

"The Animus keeps forcing me to this night at the harbour and I can't understand it! Nothing happens, it isn't even important!" Desmond was venting to the temple team during one of his rare breaks from the Animus. He cut off what he was going to add to his rant when he tried to cover his leg giving way from lack of use.
 "It must have been important to Connor if it keeps making you do it," Rebecca suggested as they all tried to keep up with Desmond's pace back to the Animus.
 "But why? I'm through two months of memories since and it hasn't been referenced once. This woman disappears, no one talks about her, nothing! And I still can't get it synchronised." Desmond complained.
 "Well maybe you're doing it wrong." William Miles suggested and Desmond stopped right in front of him.
 "I don't know what it wants me to do!" He scowled.
 Rebecca immediately stepped between them to stop the inevitable father-son drama, again. "Just do it one more time, now that Shaun's back, maybe we can find something." She reasoned with him and plucked the coffee from his hand as he sank down into the Animus with a sigh.
"Hey!" He protested at the theft of his coffee. "Not until after the Animus." Rebecca chided.

-add more of a closing sentence and the actual scene of the informant alerting Connor-

It was a late-August evening when a city contact of Connor's alerted him of some strange behaviour from the Templars. Four of them were standing on the dock, just standing there, staring into the darkness. It was a still night heavy with misted fog, allowing no man to clearly see anything more than 20ft in front of them on land and nothing over the water, but regardless there was still enough light from a lamp the Templars were standing under, mixed with eerie blue from for Connor to make out his father from his hiding place a distance behind them on a lower tier of the harbour. The unmistakable form of Charles Lee was standing next to Haytham. It took everything Connor had not to leap out and tackle him into the water while fatally piercing his lungs, the urge was almost irrepressible but with shaking breath he composed himself and turned his attention to what his eager informant was silently jabbing his finger at.
The hull of a ship was emerging from the murk.
It cut through the water almost silently, the mist muffling everything apart from a few laps and ripples tapping against the hull. The anchor was dropped with a muted plop, overruled by the creaks of the ship and small thuds of a runner boy's feet as he leapt down from the ship to tie a rope to a pillar at the end of the dock. Nobody said a word. A gangplank was eased down to the dock but no tirade of land-lusting sailors came down it. The only thing that came to stand at the head of it was a woman. She paused for a moment, breathing in the cool air of the city. Connor frowned. Her hair wasn't tied up in elaborate knots like all the women he'd seen in Boston, instead the slight breeze ruffled the thick waves of brown around her shoulders. She wore nothing to fend off the waning warmth bitten by the chill of autumn either, but her elaborate dark green brocade dress with ruffled sleeves and lace lining indicated she clearly came from a wealthy background, as did her posture. After the pause she lifted her chin, lifted her burgundy skirts with one hand and stepped onto the gangplank. She walked with purpose and socially acceptable posture, but only a circle of crying gulls in the darkening sky above them welcomed her. Her steps echoed all the way to Connor's ears but as it was the only sound to be heard other than the distant noise of a tavern and the clanging of a ship's bell somewhere in the mist, it was no surprise. They sounded a little odd to him for a lady's pumps, but nobody else appeared to have noticed it. His informant was transfixed by the information he'd brought Connor to and of the Templars, only Haytham and Charles had turned their gazes to watch her descent.
 The runner-boy held out his hand to help her step down from the gangplank and then ran back up to the ship. It wasn't necessary but a polite gesture all the same. She began to walk down the dock to the Templars with her arms straight by her sides and her face solemn. They stiffened and straightened their backs, the correct way to receive a lady, then she met Haytham's unaverted gaze.
 "Haytham." She said it like she had sighted home and a warm fire after a long and harrowing jouney. It travelled to Connor's ears as a murmur. Haytham returned the greeting with a word of three syllables but his voice did not travel as his back was turned to them. He stepped forward with one hand held out to courteously greet her, but with it the woman broke into a grin that shattered all efforts at formality and could make the most hardened warrior uneasy. She burst into a spirited run and within three bounds was leaping into his arms with hers wrapped around his neck.
 It took Connor's father a moment to register what had happened but then he returned the embrace and spun her around in a circle, her ripples of laughter hit Connor's informant like a sudden intoxication and he stared at her in a lazy, milky-eyed way.
 "Who is that?" Connor asked slowly to get through to him. The man flicked his eyes back at him, a skittish but knowledgeable vagrant once more.
 A sly, yellow-toothed smile crept across his face. His teeth didn't look different to Connor than the wolf fangs his people used to trade. "Well I'm not sure, my memory has suddenly deserted me..." He started to swindle, his eyes greedily latching onto the purse at his informee's waist. Connor's brow lowered. The man startled and looked at the woman as if a sudden relapse of memory had struck him.
 "Ah, well, I see," He started and wagged his finger like he was imparting a secret he was pleased to tell. "That would be his daughter, Marianne." He said and the wolfish smile slipped back.
 Connor startled. "His daughter?" He repeated quietly and glanced back at the gleeful pair on the docks. They were now embracing tightly.
 "Yes." The man smiled knowingly with crinkled eyes and continued in a hushed tone: "Or it might be his wife Marion or his sister Anne, his cohort Mary or his whore Anna." He counted them off on his fingers. "Whatever suits them best I daresay."
 Connor frowned and jerked his head towards the Templars with new eyes. He now saw every gesture of affection between Haytham and 'Marianne' as a pretence, and it fitted. She was greeting Charles now but did not move away from Haytham other than to give him enough personal space as was polite.
 "How do you know all this?" Connor asked.
 The man shrugged and stuck his hands in his ratty pockets, leaning back against the crates they sheltered behind. "They've been around, these two. Cabin Boys swappin' ships and disgruntled crew from all over have plenty tales to tell if you listen hard enough. Especially if a certain man and his lady made some requests that didn't go down well with them." He said while pointing his thumb at the Templars over his shoulder. Connor's eyes tightened and his mouth stiffened, he knew what some of those requests might have led to.
 "Go." He said to his informant and dropped three gold coins into his skinny palm. The man looked at them, as if he might ask for more, but then he remembered Connor's scowl from before and silently scuttled off into the shadows of Boston City with a doff of his worn hat.
 Connor watch him scamper off for a second before returning to his view of the Templars. They were on the move. He saw Marianne blatantly turn down Charles Lee's proffered arm by instead threading her's through Haytham's. None spoke out or clearly reacted but the latter seemed a little pleased by it. They started a conversation as they walked, undoubtedly catching up with affairs or reporting on a mission, which Connor could not hear as the distance was now too great. He turned his head to make sure that his informant had disappeared, the darkness confirmed it, but when he turned back he had to lunge behind the crate he was peering around. Marianne was staring right at him.
 He flattened himself against the crate and cursed himself for letting his nerves be shaken. She couldn't have seen him, his hiding spot was too shadowed and they were too far away for that. Even so, he poked his head out where he was sure nobody could see it. Marianne was still looking at the docks he'd hidden himself on but her gaze was undirected like she didn't know what she was looking for. She frowned puzzledly at his spot once more before returning her attention to the Templars. They turned right at the end of the harbour and vanished into the mist swirling around the city, Connor watched the silhouettes of their backs for only a moment before he too stepped back into the mists.

"Did you guys see that? It even synched right!" Desmond exclaimed the second he became conscious. By their inquisitive expressions he determined they had. Shaun was hammering away at his keyboard and Rebecca was trying to get a shady image up on the monitors.
 His father frowned at him. "What did you do differently?"
 "What does it matter?" Desmond replied and strode over to Shaun. "Who is she?"
 "I don't know, I've been searching through the census since the wolf-teeth guy said her name but it's nearly impossible." Shaun sighed and pushed his chair away from the computer desk to spin it around to face Desmond. "She could have been born under any name if wolf-teeth was right, and we don't know what her face looks like or where she comes from- we need more info." He stated firmly and Desmond's nostrils flared as he realised he needed to go back in, and just when they'd been so close. He breathed out heavily and paced in a circle.
 "What about Marianne Kenway? There's  got to be some truth in that, and it isn't exactly a common name." He tried to persuade Shaun and he turned back to his computer distractedly.
 "Even in the extremely rare chance that that is her name, we still don't know where she came from. I could try cross-referencing her with Haytham's data but- but..." He'd turned his head to glance at Desmond while he was speaking to him, but instead of turning back to his computer he stared, mouth agape, at something over Desmond's shoulder.
 "Well try that!" Desmond said impatiently and looked at Shaun's dazed expression. "What-" He asked and was about to turn when a voice came through the temple's speakers.
 "Well that took you a while!" Said the voice in a rather unimpressed tone.
 Desmond spun around so quickly he almost toppled a rack of equipment next to him. He steadied himself and gaped along with the others. In the centre of the temple, just higher than their heads, was a 6ft hologram of a woman.
 "Woah." He muttered. -description of Mara-
 "Honestly I was beginning to wonder if you were the team trying to outrace the Templars after all." She continued. "Fortunate timing though, I just got out of a fight. Now that would have been an awkward conversation-" She broke off as she saw Shaun lunging for the computers. "Oh no don't do that, I didn't hack into your system so you wouldn't be able to boot me out anyway. It would just make me transparent, and that would be annoying." She chided and Shaun paled as he realised she was talking directly to him, it wasn't a recording.
 "You can see us?" He asked with the tiniest hint of a squeak.
 She looked at him like he'd just asked if cows were real. "Of course."
 "Who are you?" William demanded and she turned to look down at him.
 "And how are you doing this?" Rebecca asked in an defensive tone, it was her system the woman had breached after all.
 The woman hesitated. "I got my team to put a hologram pod into your Animus design when I first found out about you, almost two years ago now. You won't find it, it fits in perfectly with everything else."
 William squinted. "You have a team? You're an assassin?"
 She laughed bitterly, then whipped her head around to look at something on her end of the line. She eased up, but continued hurriedly. "Maybe, once. But this can't be discussed like this. Even just through hologram they can be listening. No, if you want to talk then you can tell me your location so we can do it in person." She smiled at William's outraged expression then turned to Desmond. "While you consider that, you're the guy using the Animus, right?"
 He nodded guardedly and she looked over her shoulder again. "Good. Be at the frontier on Sunday the 31st of August. If you've found Marianne then you're on the right track, the Animus will take care of the rest." She flinched at something they couldn't see and bent forward to Desmond frantically, though on her side she was just putting her face up to her screens. "Be there if you want to know Connor's real story, if you don't you'll never beat the Templars to the finish line." She murmured and straightened back up. "Call me if you reconsider. I know you will." She said to them all in general.
 "And how would we do this if we wanted the Templars you informed on our ass?" Shaun asked dryly.
 She simply smiled. "You'll know." She then pulled a gun from her belt and loaded it, ready to shoot whatever it was behind her. She cocked her head. "Call me maybe?" She said and reached forward. The transmission ended.

The Frontier, Sunday, 31st August, 1777
 It was a cloudless day that made the waning of summer seem a myth, though the bite in the air said otherwise. Connor was scouting through the trees to the South of Boston for game when a thunder of hooves came upon him. He retreated as far as he could into the shade of his tree and watched in silence as a black-maned horse and its rider bolted towards, then beneath him. Its rider was a woman. She rode astride, her dress hitched up to her calves, and as confidently as any infantry soldier. Her hair flew loose behind her at full gallop, she rode by too fast for him to make out any of her features but he knew immediately who it was.
 He followed her as closely as he could. The treeline thankfully followed the dirt roads and she slowed to a canter when Boston had vanished from sight behind them. He could see now why her footsteps had seemed so odd to him that night, she wore not the heeled slippers of fashionable ladies but fitted leather boots that almost reached her knee. Normally they'd be indistinguishable under her skirts, but on horseback they were in full view.
 He stayed no more than two branch-lengths behind her. Five minutes of this passed and she seemed to have no particular direction he could think of, then she abruptly slowed to a trot and then a walk. Her eyes stayed on the path before her as she said: "Would you not be more comfortable on the back of a horse?"
 Connor was so startled that he forgot to jump onto the next branch, if she had not slowed he would have lost her completely.
 He frowned. She had not turned her head once and he had stayed far too well out of sight to have been caught in the corner of her eye, that he was sure of. "How did you-" He started.
 "You hide yourself well, but no animal in the trees would have followed me for so long, or land so heavily." She then nodded her head to acknowledge his ability. "As nimble as you are, you still have the body of a man, and as far as I know there are no monkeys in America." He could not see her face but her cheek raised in a smile. He frowned and gave a small smile at the joke he didn't understand, then leapt forward to catch up with her.
 "You are Marianne, Kenway's daughter?" He asked but said it as a fact as he came up alongside her.
 "Yes." She replied and turned her head. It was the first time they looked at eachother's faces. She paused and frowned slightly as she studied him. Her fine brows met marginally and the inner corners of her eyes creased. She cocked her head to the right, then she shook it and continued on. "But only by name, he adopted me when I was a child." She told him and he stepped onto the next tree along to get a closer look at her face.
 Of course, he could see it now. A likeness could be seen from a distance or a passing glance, but up close they looked nothing alike. Her hair was a rich brown with threads of gold, not the black his father's hair once was. Her eyes further apart and instead of hazel were the brightest green of freshly-mown summer grass kissed by the sun. Her skin fairer with a slight yellow tint rather than a light brown one. Her face shaped like a heart rather than long, her mouth and chin smaller. But for one small moment he'd had a sister, he wasn't sure how he felt about that.
 "Do you know Haytham?" She asked.
 "Only from what I've heard." He replied truthfully and she raised her head in understanding as her horse continued onwards. Connor stepped onto the next tree.
 "I was serious about you getting a horse though." She said and glanced at him hopping through three trees in little over two seconds. "There's an encampment of redcoats around the corner, you could take one of theirs before they blinked."
 "You don't support the war?" He asked, he couldn't see how taking a horse of her country's troops was supporting the empire her accent declared she belonged to.
 "I feel the same about this war as every other war, a waste. But if a country is attacked and needs to defend itself... So be it. In this case though it was the British who were out of order, so I don't care for them. And you are not either."
 "What makes you so sure?" He asked.
 "No American or British buffoon could move through the trees like you do. In fact I'd like to see them get up one." She said and then he did permit himself a smile. "I ask more for my own sake than your comfort though. I have a reputation to keep up you know."
 "A reputation?" He repeated. "Doesn't galloping through the frontier like a man prevent that?"
 She let out a low bark of laughter. "I'm simply a strange foreigner taking in her freedom after a month at sea, they won't take any notice." She emphasised her statement with a disregarding wave.
 "Why would you risk it?" He asked. She considered the question.
 "Nobody can claim to do anything well without first knowing the roads around you." She replied slowly, her eyes darting from behind the dishevelled free strands of her hair to gauge his reaction. He gave none, other than a nod of agreement, and she focused back on the path. They were coming up to the corner of the embankment. She looked at Connor again but he gave no sign of removing himself from the trees, despite her hints. She suddenly pulled her horse short with a heavy sigh and tutted at Connor.
 "Men!" She muttered exasperatedly and swung down from her horse. "Get down from there." She commanded the frozen Connor. He was so surprised he did exactly as she asked, no woman had spoken to him so directly since he'd left his village. "Take Edward." She said and bundled Edward's reins towards him. His second of hesitation cost him a glare from her deadly-sharp green eyes and he mounted. The second he touched the saddle she slapped her horse on the rear. "Go!" She demanded as Edward spurred forwards and around the corner. She waited three seconds to let them get some distance before she went around the corner herself, and started hobbling dramatically as soon as she was within sight of the redcoat camp.
 "Thief! Thief!" She cried hoarsely when she was sure she was within earshot. The sentires on guard watched her approach uncertainly.
 "Are you alright ma’am?" A soldier asked in a perfectly proper British accent as she approached.

 "What’s going on?" Another soldier asked. He walked over from the fire he was tending at the interruption. By the insignia on his coat lapels she identified him as the –Sergeant?-.

 She jumped on the opportunity of speaking to the superior officer and put on a voice much shriller than her own. "Did you see a beautiful bay ridden by a native man go by? That scoundrel stole my horse!"

 "That horse that charged past a few moments ago, they were going to fast to clearly see the rider, but it was a bay, sir." A sentry put in to the Sergeant.

 Marianne barely let the sympathetic looks settle on their faces before she continued with much eye fluttering: "Oh would one of you fine gentlemen be able to lend me a horse to be sent back as soon as I get back to Boston?" She simpered. The Sergeant and his soldiers looked between themselves indecisively. She let her weight drop on one shaky knee for a moment and was rewarded with the Sergeant shooting her a guilty look.
 "Of course." The Sergeant said after a pause and she rewarded him with her most innocent smile. "We won't be needing to move out for a while anyway." He explained to her, but he was more reassuring himself. "Harolds, get the white one." He said and snapped his fingers towards four horses they had tied up at the back of their camp.
 "Yes sir." The sentry who'd been sympathetic with Marianne replied eagerly, he brought back a dappled grey horse. He offered his hand to help her mount and she gave him a sultry smile that made him flush redder than his coat.
 "Thank you so much kind sir, I will see that she is returned to you as soon as I can!" She gushed to the Sergeant and he straightened his back, determined not to grovel and flounder like sentry.
 "Anything to help a lady in need, ma'am." He replied.
 "It gives me hope for our forces in the war." She beamed and gave them all an airy wave as she turned the horse down the road she'd sent Connor down.
 "Stay safe ma'am!" The sergeant called and the sentry saluted her, to the Sergeant's embarrassment.
 The foolish beam fell from Marianne's face the second she turned away from them, like a curtain falling to reveal the stage. She trotted neatly on out of their sight. It did not take her long before she sighted Connor on the back of Edward, hidden in the dense trees to the right of the path.
 "That was... impressive." He admitted as she approached.
 "Thank you. I'd like my horse back if you don't mind." She said, dropping back to her normal voice, and he silently dismounted, they both mounted the other horse as swiftly as eachother.
 "There." Marianne said as they turned onto the road, Connor on the left. "Now we can talk. No one will think anything of a lady and her companion taking a ride on a pleasant day. Leave the horse by the side of the road when you have no further use of it, it can find its own way home." She cleared her throat of the shrill tone she'd used previously. "Those men will never see me again."
 "And if they do?" Connor asked.
 She turned to him curiously and smiled wryly at his doubt in her. "Then I will have a harrowing tale of how I was ambushed by bandits prepared. I was already jumped by a native, they will have accepted I'm a weakling who simply attracts trouble."
 "You seem... used to this." He chose his words carefully and she shot a wary glance at him.
 "Like you are used to flying through the trees, monkey man?" She asked, shooting the question back at him with a light joke.
 He snorted softly at her deflection. "Connor, my name is Connor." He replied, also avoiding the question but also giving her what she had sought.
 She smiled. "Connor." She repeated it slowly, like she'd just discovered the name of a new food and wad trying to decide if she liked it or not. "Well, Connor, I believe we were talking about the war -enter possible asking of Connor's opinion on it depending on the events and year-

Shaun trying to find out who she is in the database, can't right now so sends Desmond back into the Animus where they witness Connor personally meeting Marianne for the first time in the frontier, Connor then confronts Achilles with what he learnt and he recalls Haytham's "little Marie" and Desmond is pulled out of the animus as they've found her actual birthname.
OR Shaun finds her name after the first meeting, Mara's hologram connection is made when they say her name. At the end of the discussion she urges them to continue with her story and the truth of Connor's while she travels to them, or they consider it, as she cannot tell them the truth over a hologram.
Connor comes across her by chance in the frontier. Her hair is loose again. She's riding hard through the dirt roads and he follows in the trees. This goes on for 3/4 minutes before she slows down and startles him by asking if he wouldn't be more comfortable on horseback; she didn't look back once. He answers his half-voiced question by pointing out no wildlife is so heavy in the trees or would follow her for so long. He asks if she's Marianne, Haytham's daughter. She replies yes but only by name, he adopted her. He then realises that though you could be fooled from a distance they look nothing alike. Her hair is brown with flecks of gold and her eyes as green as newly-mowed grass on a summer's day, and her skin though pale has a pink/yellow tint, not -Haytham's-. She brings up the subject of his travelling method again and mentions that there's a redcoat