sixthiterationlogs | One | Altaïr Can't Swim (it's a trending tag on AO3)

WHO: Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad
WHERE: South Village fountain
WHEN: Beginning October 28
OPEN TO: Anyone who wants to find a half-drowned and confused Assassin.
WARNINGS: Arabic cursing. (Both cursing in Arabic and an Arabic man cursing.)

Water.

It would permanently be his bane.

He had expected his afterlife to be anything but that, if he was to have one at all. After all he'd seen, he'd more suspected that after death came nothing. A lack of existence. An ending, and nothing more. If he ascribed to the Christian notions, he would surely be relegated to their hell for the lives he'd taken, and for a moment, it occurred to him that this was it. A form of eternal torment by the water filling his lungs, his hands finding no purchase. Was he to spend the rest of time dying over and over again in water?

But his body had panicked for him. Fighting against the water, struggling, flailing wildly and completely without skill. He could feel his lungs burning from what he'd inhaled before he'd begun to hold his breath, the ache of a cough wanting to break free but he knew that if he opened his mouth, only more water would rush in--

He coughed. His lungs filled further, and fear took hold of his heart. No. No, he could not spend eternity this way, dying again and again with what looked like sky past the water's surface. Again, he coughed. His lungs were getting heavier, his vision dimmer. No!

And then--

And then, even in the depths, he could breathe, except it... it wasn't breathing. Water was still passing into him, but his vision began to clear and his limbs felt less sluggish and his mind slowly climbed away from the base reactions of survival toward true and rational thought.

He was breathing water. How?

His mind sought reasons, but with his calm came buoyancy. He began to rise toward the surface, a hand reaching out toward the nearest wall, touching stone, able to use it to push upward, and when he broke free and took hold of the stone with his entire arms, he bent over it. He coughed once, twice, water pouring from his mouth and nose in a painful rush, but then he was breathing air. Clear, cool air.

Willpower pulled him over the edge, onto the ground, where he laid on his stomach and relished the simple act of breathing. He'd been short of breath for years, coughing with any exertion, but never had it felt so horrible as that. "Al'ama," he groaned, head turned sideways to rest on the ground before, with excruciating slowness, he pushed himself up to sit. "'Ana kabir fi alsini lihadha."

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"Of all the things water has done to me, to make me younger has not been one until now." No, he generally hated water - and now, knowing the depth of this seemingly innocuous fountain, he knew he would be giving it care. "But these are not the hands I died with. The spots, the veins, the skin like an onion..." Slowly, he shook his head. "But if this is how it shall be, I have few reasons to complain."

Few. Not 'no.' There were things he had counted on for the afterlife. This is giving him none of them. He found himself heartsore for Maria, Sef, and Malik. Even for Abbas and Ahmad. He had thought to see them here, if there was an afterlife at all. But to see this...

Well. Worse had happened. He would survive.

"It's not one of the things that water typically does."

There are, of course, the persistent rumors of fountains of youth, even in Druitt's world. But there's never been any direct proof of one having been found either. Otherwise he would have spent a good deal more time seeing what could have been made of same, and he rather doubts that he would have been the only one of Five to do so either. After all, he can't imagine that James had found the suit that had granted him immortality to be terribly comfortable, even though it had undeniably worked.

Still, he doesn't so much as bat an eye at Altaïr's implication that he'd died, and he offers a shrug in return.

"I can think of worse places to be, yes."

He's still not thrilled about life in the village. But it certainly beats being dead, that much he has to agree.

Which brings a question: "Does this place have a name?"

Afterlife. Heaven, as the Christians said. Hell? If he believed, he knew which he was more likely to be in. Time would tell how correct he was or wasn't. But as he now was, in clothing that was far from his and a landscape unlike any he'd seen before, he had to wonder if there was a name to the place where he'd found himself.

And if he, maybe, had a chance at seeing those who had left life before he did.

"None that I'm aware of."

There's a shrug to go with the words, as if to say that he's well aware that this is not likely to be the most comforting of answers. Or, barring that, at least not the most helpful of answers. But it's the truth, to the best of his knowledge, and there's not much that he can really do to change that.

"Although it does seem to be somewhere other than where we might have been otherwise."

"That may depend," Altaïr said, "on where we might have been." And that statement alone made him wonder at this man who was speaking to him. Where was it that he'd expected to be rather than here? Any other day, he would have doubted the man old enough to fear death, but now - seeing his own rejuvenation - he had to wonder.

"It does," Druitt agrees with a nod. For all that he's significantly older than looks as well, Altaïr isn't the only one who's seen their own death. Not that he's likely to talk about it, mind. There are some things that even he isn't terribly inclined to speak much of. But he's no stranger to the idea, at the very least, and that's something.

"Although the local wildlife is distinctly unusual by the standards of most people here."

Whether that means they're new strains of Abnormals or that they're on a completely different world, he can't say. Not with any certainty. But it is something to take note of, he figures.

"Howso?"

The wet was getting to him, but he wasn't going to start to disrobe here. What he was going to do was make plans to change as soon as he found somewhere both reasonably warm and reasonably private. He was also going to find some sort of head covering rather than go about with his hair for all to see. Age had made him let it go somewhat. It wasn't the close-cropped length it had been for most of his life, but even now, he could feel it brushing the back of his neck. An odd feeling, to be sure.

But secondary. There was much for him to think about. What he'd left behind. What he was here to do. Already, a small amount of suspicions were growing in his mind, but he knew the lessons he'd been taught: one can never be certain, and can only suspect. So they would remain possibilities until proven right or wrong.

"I know certain areas are more given to certain creatures than others. The English know little of camels until they see them."

"Different animals do tend to have their own preferred climates, it's true." There's a brief nod to go with the words, before he continues on. "Although in my experience, most people these days are at least aware of what camels are, even if they haven't directly interacted with them."

Still, he's not denying the truth of Altaïr's words either. There are always things people aren't familiar with, for one reason or another, be it camels or Abnormals. Or even something that isn't directly related to animals at all, for all that he figures that's a little less relevant to the conversation at hand.

"As to the creatures here... it depends. Some of them could almost be like the ones back home, save for the color. And then there are ones that are very clearly not something one would see on Earth. Things that people might otherwise call monsters."

He's thinking of the wendigo that had attacked the village in particular, with that last. Even if he'd never managed to actually get a name for the creature.

One | Altaïr Can't Swim (it's a trending tag on AO3)

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