sixthiterationlogs | i'm done being a pawn

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i'm done being a pawn

WHO: Desmond Miles
WHERE: Fountain; around the village,
WHEN: 12/3
OPEN TO: Anyone!
WARNINGS: Swearing for sure

Fountain arrival; ota

His hand was going in slow motion as it reached for the key to saving humanity and releasing Juno. Despite knowing it was right, despite saying goodbye to the remaining people in his life, he was afraid as he took a deep breath and prepared for the end. His eyes closed ... and then suddenly he was opening his eyes surrounded by water. Desmond flailed, shocked and horrified, this was not the way he expected Juno to take him, and was he supposed to just wait until he drowned? No, this can't be right. His feet kicked and he broke the water into air, gasping and scrambling for the side of ... what the hell was this? His eyes hurt from the water and he dragged himself out, immediately shocked by the cold of the air around him. It hadn't been cold before, why was it cold?

Desmond shakily tried to stand but collapsed hard onto his knees, his hands catching his weight. He should be dead. Maybe he was dead. Or maybe this was something else. He sat back on his haunches, breathing unsteadily, and dropping this strange pack from his back to toss it aside. Who put that on him? Juno's face hazily appeared in his mind's eye, and his confusion turned into rage. Maybe he failed. Maybe this was Minerva, furious that he disobeyed. Frustrated, he did something very stupid and dove right back into the water, going as far as he could. He had to finish this. He couldn't thwart fate. He reached around of any sign of what to do, but it was dark and he sprang out of the water again, colder and more exhausted than before.

"Juno!" He yelled, searching the sky. "Minerva! Which one of you bitches did this?" Desmond spit out water, shaking from cold or shock. "Juno! Goddamnit."

Around the village the next few days, OTA

Desmond was unnerved by everything so far and deeply suspicious. It was an elaborate lie, it had to be. A trick. He went to the inn just because there was no where else to stop freezing and not starve as far as he could tell. He sat by himself in the furthest corner away from others, making certain nothing was at his back but the wall in case of stabbing. Occasionally he ventured up to the records there, reading it but skeptical.

Later on he can be seen in the bunker trying to make sense of what was down there and if his hacking had any use. He was wandering around the village, admittedly being a little creepy as he glanced at the houses and cased the joints. Eventually he claimed House 46 and sat outside, staring off into the distance, scowling.

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You - who will bring him the last piece. That he may open the door.

You are important, child. In more ways than you will ever know.

Yours is a special lineage. Past. Present. Future. Many are connected to you.

Juno's words, spoken so very long ago now rang through his mind as Desmond spoke, as some of the answers to his very many questions became clear.

Desmond was his descendant, part of his future lineage, related to him no matter how distantly. How much time had passed between the line that he had come from and the time which Desmond lived? What had taken place? How much had changed? There was suddenly so much that he wanted to know.

This man, this one who stood in front of him now was who Juno had spoken of. The one who needed the last piece. The one who had to open the door. He wondered even now what that had met.

There was a hand being offered and he reached for it, movements slow and steady as skin slipped against skin, warm and very, very real.

"You are who she spoke of. She said that I needed to bring you to the last piece, but I have never understood what she met." His touch was gentle, like a man who was fully and entirely aware of his own strength, but it was fleeting and over in a moment. "Please, there is so much I wish to know."

Oh god Connor was real. All his hallucinations were intangible, so he knew the difference, and Desmond was filled with both relief and fear. He didn't want to be crazy and stuck again, but he also had no idea what to do with the information that he was face to face with his ancestor. His hand was shaking after Connor pulled away; no wait, his entire body was shaking.

"Yeah. I'm ... I'm the one she was talking about." Desmond knew exactly what he was talking about, because he'd been there at the time. Watching through Connor's eyes. How do you tell someone that? Hi, nice to meet you, I know more about you than anyone else and you'd probably hate it. He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, still wet. This was insane. If he wasn't already insane, he'd probably be soon enough.

"Man, I'm not really sure how good my answers are going to be, but I can try." He owed Connor that. Of all his ancestors, Connor was the one he felt he really understood, and he didn't want to be another person who gave him riddles or half-truths. If he didn't know what to say, he wouldn't. His brain was on fire at the moment anyway and he was freezing besides. "This is the afterlife, isn't it?" It was clearly the obvious choice now. "Like a purgatory? Because we're both dead, and we're here, so that's ... that's got to be it." Connor lived much longer than Desmond's 25 years, but he did eventually die like all other people.

Connor would absolutely hate how much Desmond knew about him - but it would have been nothing against Desmond in particular. He would hate what the Templars had forced upon him, what the assassins had become, how they had used him, how he'd been given no choice in anything. Would hate how it had been his life that had been manipulated and used to find this stupid key that would lead Desmond to his death.

Would hate that Desmond had seen him at his worst, at his lowest points, where everything had gone wrong. Had seen his failures. But he wouldn't hate nor blame Desmond for a singular moment.

Hearing that he was dead threw him off just a little - but that only made sense. This place was in a future from the time which he had lived, and Desmond was his descendant.

Everything about this was so fucked.

"I am sorry but I do not know." He wished that he had some of the answers this man was likely seeking, but he had so few himself.

"You are shaking." He says it simply, like a statement, only just having looked down and noticed. "Come. There are empty houses nearby. We may talk there. Once you are dry and warm."

Desmond also hated all of those things. He was the one the most aware of how much of it was bullshit, how much of it was controlled and manipulated from beginning to end. Some of it was their choice, but not enough of it. And now they were in a place with limited choices again. He just wanted to know if it was possible to ask to rest for once. Lie down and maybe stop existing entirely, which was kind of the point of dying, he thought, but you know, guess not.

He wanted to be more wary, but it was Connor, and if there were any people in the world he actually still believed in, it was his ancestors. He knew them, admired them, and trusted them. "Okay." He nodded and followed wherever Connor led, wrapping arms around himself while he shivered. It was only partly from the cold, probably, although that was very intense. He was pretty sure he had no idea how the things he was going to feel and think the next few days were going to manifest physically. But maybe that's what lying down somewhere and sleeping for a week would solve.

"This is one crappy afterlife. It's cold and I don't know, old looking." He was from the modern era. This might be advanced for Connor, but it wasn't for him.

It was bitterly cold, and without his assassin robes to keep out the worst of winters chill it was the worst bite he had ever felt. Made only more unbearable by the wet arrival they were forced to endure.

There was a twin row of houses to the direct North and he set off in that direction, aiming towards the first upon the left which looked empty enough. Indeed, the door opened easily, the interior dark and dusty as he moved inside, holding the door open long enough for Desmond to slip in behind him.

There were usually blankets in the bedrooms, at least there had been this far, and he traveled deeper to find one and procure what he could, shaking it out as he walked back through the house into the opened space of the living room.

"It is not much, but it is warm and dry. You should also change from those clothes." It wasn't that he wouldn't care for Desmond should he catch his death of cold, it was only that he was certain the other would be in the intolerable sort should he become ill.

"If I may ask, what year are you from? You said that all of this looks old, but to me it all looks very new and strange."

Desmond stepped into the house and glanced around curiously, before taking the offered blanket. At least inside there was slightly less biting cold. He was not a very trusting person by nature, he had good reason to be, but this was Connor. Connor could lead him into the most suspicious as fuck situations and he'd just go along with it. But that was the type of thing that was hard to explain to someone else, and Connor had no such reason to trust him the same. He wasn't sure yet if he wanted that to change or not. He still didn't know what any of this was.

"2012." The year he died. Wow. That was still going to take some getting used to. He put the pack down that was strapped to him to see if the clothes inside were better than the ones currently clinging to him. They actually seemed to be. He hated these scrubs, it made him think of being a lab rat. He pulled out the clothes in the pack and looked at them curiously. Okay, well at least he was all good with socks and briefs when he wanted to change.

Desmond ran a hand over his face and looked over at Connor. "I'll answer your questions if I can, but a lot of it is pretty confusing, even for someone who's lived through it."

2012.

The year Desmond had come from was 2012.

Connor was entirely, completely and utterly certain that it had been 1778 before he had been taken. There was a two hundred and thirty-four year span of time between them.

"I do not even know where to begin." It was all so much. "How is it you know of me?" There had been nothing about him that was truly so spectacular that his name should have been passed that far down.

Ughhhh that was the obvious next question, but also the answer he most dreaded trying to come up with. Desmond thought through how to put it. "There's a machine in my time. It's called the Animus." Okay he was starting big picture and narrowing it down from there. "The only reason I was special was because of my DNA, my connection to you and Altair and another ancestor named Ezio. I was used for that reason through the Animus. It allowed me the ability to ... live through some of the experiences my ancestors did. We wanted to find out where certain items were, but the only way to do that was to know where some of you hid it."

So into the Animus and into another life he went. "I'm sorry, I sort of ... saw parts of your life. I know that's intrusive, so we don't need to make it a thing." Not just parts. The majority of his life, in a lot of ways, but that really was too much. Desmond felt better that he apologized at least, so Connor knew he wasn't really intending to snoop. He wasn't even supposed to know it happened. "It was the only way I could find out where you and Altair put things that would help save the world. And I did." He looked away. "Save the world." Before dying.

All of it - the entirety of it sounded so surreal, so crazy that all he did was simply stare at Desmond for a few long moments after he finished speaking, trying to take it all in.

This machine - The Animus - had allowed Desmond to see his life. Parts of his life sounded far too much like most for his liking.

"How much did you see?" There was so much, looking back on his life, that he wished he could change. How much of it had Desmond witnessed? Did he know of his mother? Of his father? Of his village?

Desmond tried to find an answer that would help make this less uncomfortable, but there wasn't one. "Mostly major events." That much was true at least, although he saw some mundane parts as well. It was really hard to explain to anyone else. The Animus was very specific. "I know Haytham. I actually lived through parts of Haytham too. Not as many." And he really didn't like that guy. It hit far too close to home for him, that contentious relationship (or lack of) between father and son.

"Honestly it would be easier to assume I know more than you'd like, Connor." He wearily took a seat on the floor since he was wet and didn't intend to sit on furniture. Even in this situation, he was trying to be an okay guy. "I know about your mother and the village. I know what Juno told you, and about Lee and Achilles. I lived through the Revolution with you and Monmouth. I could go on from there, and I know it sucks that I did, and I'm sorry." Seriously, Desmond could have lied but it was never his strength. His weary look up was genuinely apologetic. "You weren't supposed to be a real person, you were a memory."

There was absolutely nothing that was ever going to make this any less uncomfortable.

Desmond knew everything. Knew about Haytham, about his father. Knew about Achilles. About his village. Knew about that bastard Charles Lee. Knew about his mother. Had he been there when she died? Had he been forced to live through that horrible moment that would haunt him for the rest of his life?

All of the war, everything he had done to try and turn the tides, to try and ensure the independence of this would be nation. It was apparent now that it had worked, that it had been worth it. But there had been so much pain, so much suffering and sometimes it felt like his heart would explode with it.

"It is -" Not alright. None of this was alright. But it was difficult when Desmond was looking at him like that and he could see the resemblance between them now. "You should change." It seemed weak, but he could not give any other answer, not right now.

"Yeah okay." Desmond stood up and grabbed the pack. "I'll go over here and come out." That way they could both compose themselves a little. He stepped into one of the bedrooms just so he could change, but he took a moment too to run his hands over his face and try not to have the physical and emotional breakdown hanging over his head. Knowing you could die and actually dying were two separate things, and maybe he could have focused on dealing with that if he didn't also run into his ancestor in the afterlife.

He lived through Connor's pain. Altair and Ezio he knew well, he respected, he cared for. But Connor hit him the hardest emotionally. It was the last life he went through before the end, and it was painful enough that he ended up with some sort of numb acceptance of the unfairness of life. It was weird, being kind of glad to be able to talk to him, but also feeling it was too much.

He put his former clothes back into the pack and stepped out into the room again. "So here's the deal. Here's the story the way I've pieced together." It felt a little better, trying to think rationally, with the facts. "A very long time ago there was an advanced race called the Isu. They created mankind. The Pieces of Eden were in part created to control mankind. There was a war between them, but at the same time Juno, Minerva, and Jupiter realized a world ending sort of natural disaster was coming. They created a bunch of possible ways to stop it, but they couldn't. Clues were left, clues that we found, as ways to try and stop the future world from the same disaster when it came back around. Everything the three of you went through to get those clues and pieces of Isu technology were in the hope that in my time we could stop it from happening."

There was more to it, like a lot of details he was still wrapping his brain around, but that kind of seemed like a good summary. "It worked. There was something called the Eye, and with it we could protect the earth. But Juno, who is a real vicious manipulative bitch by the way, had orchestrated every part of it to lead us there because the Eye would release her from a prison she was in. I had a choice." And a terrible fucking one at that. "Let her go and save the earth from the disaster, knowing she was going to use her power from there to dominate the planet and humans again, or let most of the earth and the people on it die." This was easier to explain in his factual way, or maybe he was still numb to it. "I picked to save people and sacrifice myself. The Templars kidnapped me before that and infiltrated my group with a double agent even after I escaped." Lucy. "They didn't know that I was the only one who could use the Eye. The Animus was their creation, to use me to watch all of you."

Okay he felt like that was a lot but a fairly reasonable summary. "So yeah. Uh. General answers I guess."

Of course, it had been the Templars.

Connor could practically hear his father's voice, telling him that certain things were simply necessary, that there was no other way. Hadn't he seen what his father was capable of? What the Templars were capable of? Hadn't they found a way to imprison him? Hadn't they plotted to kill George Washington? Hadn't his father killed a man simply because he gave up the needed information and he didn't want to extend the resources to care for him until it would be safe to release him?

Of course the Templars would have no problem kidnapping someone. Especially someone with the sort of lineage as Desmond.

"This key that I am supposed to find, it is one of these clues? That is why Juno sent me down this path?" It made sense in a way, now, everything she had said. That if he continued down this path it would only lead to destruction. Not the instant destruction of his village and his people that he had feared, but the future destruction of the entire world

"What of the assassins? Did they not try to put a stop to this?"

Desmond sighed and crossed his arms, glancing away. "You led me to the Grand Temple. It was the most important piece. It's where the world was saved." And where he died. So it was great they found it, and also personally awful, but hey, Desmond made his choice. He might regret a lot of things about his life, but saving people was not one of them. "Juno didn't want the Templars to get it, and if you became one, they would, and then the calamity would happen and she might never be released. She didn't actually care about either of our sides, she needed me."

Desmond snorted. "You know, a lot of people wish they were a special snowflake, but all I ever wanted was to be normal." They both knew that unfortunately a lot of people never got what they wanted. Few people did, and not in their blood line, clearly.

He paused at this point and really thought through his answer. He wasn't sure why he was being careful, but maybe it was respect for the dead. "They rescued me, or so they thought. It's complicated, but you could say there was a triple spy involved. Someone who was an Assassin, and then a Templar, but the Assassins still thought they were one of them. I thought ...." She was. "Anyway, we escaped. The Assassins are weak now. The Templars are powerful, they've almost wiped us out, honestly. My father is the current leader."

Part of him wanted to ask how he would have ever become a Templar.

But his father was one, and there has been so much of what he had said that made sense. He had even gone so far as to work with the man on different occasions, had listened to his teachings, had tried to compromise. If Haytham had discovered him first, had gotten to him before Juno had set him down the path of becoming an assassin, it was all too possible that he could have.

"So she used me to stop them instead." It all made so much sense now. Why she had told him he couldn't remain on his current path. Sure, it had, apparently, been for the greater good, but he despised the idea that he had been used.

"Your father is the Mentor of the Assassins." It's a statement instead of a question, spoken as he begins to walk back and forth, across the small room they're in and back. "So you are saying that the Templars have won?"

"Yeah that's what Juno's good at. Using people." He could just drown in that bitterness. Do a back stroke through it. Desmond did die only a little while ago, he felt like he deserved a time to really be bitter and hate that woman with every fiber of his being. She created him, using hundreds of years to do it, and that was his entire existence in a nutshell. "We were all pawns in her game. And now I guess we're pawns in whatever the hell is going on here." Was it still her? Was it someone else now who was playing with him? He's so tired of knowing nothing.

"He is. And I don't know. They didn't get what they wanted from me. If they got what they wanted, everyone would be dead, so that's good. I have no idea what happens next." Desmond's rubbed hands down his face. "It really fucking sucks that we can't all just figure it out and work together. I know that essentially the way of life is opposite, free will or control, but the world almost was set on fire because of this damn endless war."

He stared at the wall and then up at Connor. "I know, I'm a piss poor Assassin, but seriously, after what I just saw, after living through all three of your lives, all I can think of is how pointless it ended up being. I'm not alive anymore to do anything, but if the Templars and Assassins can't spend five minutes getting along, she's going to win and that will be it. Sometimes there are just bigger things than pride and hate." Desmond knew this was the type of talk that would've gotten him backhanded back home, but whatever. He was in the afterlife. He could say whatever he wanted now.

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i'm done being a pawn

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