Cold Arrival

[loyalrebel]

WHO: Malik Al-Sayf
WHERE: Fountain Square, Inn, around the village
WHEN: 12/29
OPEN TO: Fountain: Altaïr, Elsewhere: OTA
WARNINGS: mention of past character death, tbd

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Fountain: Altaïr

As far as rude revivals went, regaining consciousness underwater was pretty high up there. That it was also freezing didn't help anything in the slightest. Malik isn't entirely sure how he makes it to the surface or the edge of the fountain where he clings and tries to catch his breath.

He knows he needs to get out of the water and in to somewhere at least sheltered if not warm. That or dip back under and call his merfolk form around him. There's something off though, besides the seeming lack of other Travelers in the water with him. He tries to reach for his magic, and that's when he figures out what's out of place.

He can't access any of his bag of tricks. No magic, no portals to Liminal, no shapeshifting either.

He swears under his breath, clinging tightly to the edge of the fountain.

“Hello?” He calls out, hoping there's someone within earshot even as he struggles up out of the water as best he can with one arm while shivering.

Inn: OTA

Malik had genuinely forgotten exactly how much the cold bothered him, being able to magically ignore it had spoiled him against the unique aches it brought to his left shoulder. Which, much to his dismay, has reproduced in his knees.

He's managed to settle himself at a table close to the fireplace, which he eyes on occasion like he's contemplating actually pressing himself against the bricks or just crawling inside of. Mostly though, he eats and attempts to eavesdrop on anyone coming in.

There's something he notices though, as he eats and its enough to actually give him pause to stare at the dish before him.

“That is new.” He admits aloud, frowning.

Wildcard

He hasn't been here long, but there are some rather important things that Malik needs to test out before all hell breaks loose as it usually does. So he finds a nostly out of the place to try things out.

While most of it seems to involve standing there looking increasingly annoyed, he does eventually take to throwing stones he dug out of the snow at a cleared bit of ground with remarkable precision while looking murderous.

Comments

[loyalrebel]

"....of course you do not." Malik sighed, something inside of him just crumpling and closing off. Of course Altair didn't remember, that would be what the Arcana would do. "It does not matter, we are here and that is more important than the rest."

He's quiet as they get inside, only briefly reaching to rub at the side of his jaw and to be relieved to find it whole.

"The last thing I remember is dying, so forgive me for being... out of sorts." He admits, once they're in relatively secure private.

[eaglesonofnone]

"That is the last thing I remember before arriving here as well," he said quietly, drawing Malik further into the house. All of it was warm, but the area beside the boiler was warmest. He took Malik to the spot where he'd found the most heat came up from the cellar. There was a chair there already, and he urged Malik to sit, pushing back his own hood. "Though I was ninety-two then, and arrived here as you see me." A young man - the age he'd been when Darim and Sef had been boys. Still wearing his scars, but with the dark hair and smooth skin of youth.

[loyalrebel]

"You would live practically forever." Malik only half smiled, "Though I was not old as the years you claim between seeing me would say. The last I remember from home, Darim was still young enough to your robes."

[eaglesonofnone]

Darim. The last face he'd seen before closing the door on his library. The smile that came to him was small and sad. "He was nearing seventy."

But then he was reaching up, barely believing his eyes still, to touch Malik's cheek, fingertips brushing grey hair. "I... Forgive me. I am overwhelmed. I did not want to hope to see you. It means you are caught here like the rest of us, but I cannot help but be glad."

[loyalrebel]

"Time is not always as straight a line as we think, my friend." Malik replied, "This is not the first place I have been to that is not home either, and if the pattern holds I will not be here very long either."

Better to tell this Altair now than to disappear unwarned on him in a few weeks.

"I am only lucky I am myself for this one."

[eaglesonofnone]

His brows lowered. Malik had likely seen this expression before. Disappointment, but one he dealt with. Altaïr took in a deep, slow breath, nodded, and then reached out to hug him again. "Then I will take and hold dear the time I have."

[loyalrebel]

"You will see me again, you just may not remember this time when you do." Malik replied, letting out a soft breath at the hug and leaning in to it.

"Tell me of this place, and I will tell you of the past three years of madness I have seen."

[eaglesonofnone]

"I have only been here a matter of months." And he had been lonely - a state he should have been used to, but here, now, having met people who needed him, started building his own sort of family, he found himself missing the old. As he spoke, he shifted until he could sit alongside Malik, staying intently within arm's reach. "The people here are from different times and different worlds. Some, like Sayyida Margaery, have similar worlds. Others are from versions of Earth far in our future. The village itself is... hard to explain."

He had to think. As he thought, he let his arm rest around Malik - because he was there. Because his friend, who might as well be a brother, was beside him again. "People come and go constantly. Some are here for days, others for years. Things happen here that seem to be controlled from the outside, but I have yet to find the source of the control. I have been trying to help many of them learn how to manage in a place like this - their society, as it has advanced, has left behind many of the basic skills. They have never had to keep animals before, and the like.

"There is a place a few days' travel from here known as the Bunker. It has devices inside the likes of which I have only seen from the Apple. People arrive there in tubes - it is where you were before you arrived in the Fountain, I have no doubt."

[loyalrebel]

Malik hummed in acknowledgement, quietly leaning in to the warmth of Altaïr. It had been a while since he could remember anyone besides Melissa being so willing to be this close.

"I am well familiar with the ignorance of people after our time. Most of them barely speak two languages, things become... impersonal." He sighed, "They do not even pay skilled craftspeople enough to live on in most places."

His eyes close, and Malik just looks exhausted.

"I spent the past nearly three years as a pawn in a cosmic game of power between beings called the Arcana. They took people from their homes, claimed us without permission and would send us to different worlds to interfere with current events. We would often end up living the life of a version of ourselves who lived in that world, living their life as those who stayed themselves tried to do things.

"Some of us banded together recently and tried to kill one of the Arcana. I...died doing so, and I do not know if the others succeeded. You were there, so I assume Tower was felled."

There's more, so much more and while some of it was good there were a great many terrible parts as well.

"I doubt I can help much beyond whatever chores need doing." He admitted, "My skillset is not often needed around people from the future, or if they are there are a half dozen others who are already doing it faster than I can."

[eaglesonofnone]

But Altaïr shook his head, even as he lightly squeezed Malik against him. It settled even more of what had been uncertain inside him, more than he'd felt since... Well. Since death. "Your skills would be invaluable here, Malik. I've begun a village watch that keeps patrols around the borders. Your mapmaking may be the best way we could have to search for more secrets that have yet to be found, including the way for people to leave here of their own choice. You know more about making certain resources go to the places where they are needed than anyone I've ever seen. And while I am not the leader here by far, people seem to be eager for the experience people like us can bring. There is nothing from the future here beyond people and their memories. Most here are fighters. Few have the ability to build or craft as is needed."

The rest of what he said - if anything, it made Altaïr all the more protective. Arcana? Being claimed and used as... what, pawns? That went against their very nature, his and Malik's. No wonder he'd balked and killed one of them, whatever these 'Arcana' were. "I am only sorry that you've gone through so much, Akhi..."

[loyalrebel]

"Except I am tired of trying." Malik admits in a quiet voice. "I am tired of everything, but it never stops long enough to rest. I am here now, and you are asking me to help and I know I will whether you take the request back or not."

He's aware enough of himself to know that, and what he's wanted hasn't held much weight in what he does for most of his life anyway. The Brotherhood came first, the people he cared about mattered more.

"Give me a few days and I will at least look at what I can do with a few weeks."

[eaglesonofnone]

"I will not ask you to help. I only mean to reassure, Malik - you always have a place wherever I am. All I want of you here and now is rest."

Altaïr half-turned, resting his chin to the top of Malik's head. "I had the chance to grow old. I've learned what it is to have people who matter. If I only have you for a few weeks, I will make certain you leave here rested, fed, and well."

[loyalrebel]

"It will take longer than a few weeks for me to be well." Malik sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "I would rather stay here and not return unless it is properly home."

[eaglesonofnone]

"Then I will do what I can." He pressed his face gently against Malik's hair before beginning to stand. "For now, I can offer some soup that I keep on the stove. There are no lentils here yet, but it is close to what we used to have at home. Would you eat a bowl?"

[loyalrebel]

"That sounds excellent." Malik nodded, "Lentils or not. It has been a while since I had something someone else cooked."

He's thankful that he's at least thawed out enough to stop shivering now.

"I assume I can stay here with you? I do not mind sleeping on the couch or sharing if need be."

[eaglesonofnone]

"I have an extra bedroom if you wish," he said, "but you are welcome to sleep wherever you want. There is every chance I will wake you by checking on you." He placed his hand on Malik's shoulder. "Stay here, get warm. I'll be back in a moment."

And that was how Altaïr left him for a matter of minutes. While he was still getting used to the layout of this kitchen, he'd at least been able to cook. The soup was hearty, made from potatoes, onions, and pork from the beast he and the Iron Bull fought together, kept warm on a banked stove in the kitchen. He portioned it out into a bowl and brought it, as well as a chunk of bread, to Malik's chair. He placed both on the table beside him, and then fetched a glass of cool water.

"There is a modest variety here as it comes to foods," he said. "When spring comes, I'm hoping to put in a well at the side of the river to irrigate a field for rice. You will have to wish me luck." If anyone knew just how little Altaïr knew about the practical parts of farming, it was Malik. Theory - certainly. Theory was simple. But Altaïr was not a man who had held traces and guided an ox through its paces.

[loyalrebel]

Malik fixed Altair with a flat look when he mentioned attempting to farm, pausing before he begins eating to slowly raise an eyebrow.

"Altair, you are my closest friend and one of the more clever men I have met in my life." He said with calm deliberstenes, "But the only thing you have talent at doing in a farmfield is riding through them on horseback while chased by guards. You will need more than luck for your career as a farmer."

[eaglesonofnone]

"I know." And he very nearly laughed, looking at Malik with eyes almost purely helpless. "I am doing many things here that I know little of. It is like looking into the Apple. I see what can be done and what needs to be done to make it possible, but I haven't the skill. But I need to learn. This is not Masyaf - I cannot simply send down word and expect it all to be done. I must have my hands in it here.

"So far, I have established a watch to be aware of external threats. I have been urging people toward things that suit their talents. We had an illness sweep through, and I did what I could for the ill. Most here simply wish to leave. I..."

He had just been speaking to Takashi days before, and he had decided if a risk was to be taken, someone like him should be the one to take it. Now, at least for a while, he had Malik to take care of. He couldn't take that sort of risk until his oldest, dearest friend had something more steady under his feet.

"I do not mind it so badly, being here."

[loyalrebel]

Malik began eating carefully, nodding along where appropriate in Altair's telling of events. His expression softened at the admittance at the end, it was something he understood.

"It is not wrong of you to disagree with others about minding staying here." He said, "You gave the Brotherhood a longer lifetime than most, having the chance to step back and do things because you wish to do them here is not one I would hold against you for taking. Not when I sought out a solution to something similar."

He gives a half smile, because he knows exactly how foolish what he did was.

"Mind you, it involved begging one of the greek pantheon for immortality so yours is far less foolish an idea."

[eaglesonofnone]

"Immortality," he echoed, finding that the thought put an odd twist to his stomach and a moment of pain in his heart. But then he gave Malik a smile instead. "You must have found something wonderful to live for."

And each word was sincere. It was only that now he knew - was absolutely certain - that the man before him was not the one he had known. The events didn't match. Nothing Juno had showed him of the future had had Malik in it. Yet, it didn't matter: he was happy that Malik had found a reason to want to live forever. He was happy to see him, even if it was for only a matter of weeks. He was happy to have the chance to hear his voice. None of that had changed.

"I am glad for you, Akhi."

[loyalrebel]

"I found people worth waiting eight hundred years to see again." Malik admitted, "Though I have no guarantee it will work, it does not prevent me from being killed."

His recent death proved that rather pointedly, and he's very aware that there are some things that just can't be healed from.

"That and I have a great urge to yell at our distant successors over some of their decisions, and I cannot do that very effectively as a ghost."

[eaglesonofnone]

Altaïr watched him - and he found himself smiling almost despite himself. "Everything you say makes me wish to keep you in my sight for as long as I can. I truly have missed you."

He wanted to say that he should never have gone to Mongolia. If he hadn't, it would have changed everything. But if he hadn't, if he had sent Darim, would it have gone as well as it did? There were too many questions down that path.

[loyalrebel]

Malik ended up smiling back. "Do not worry, you will remember how irritating I can manage to be soon enough. I am certain we will fall in to a debate about something soon enough."

It was a familiar dance of words and ideas that was easy as a haystack to fall in to.

[eaglesonofnone]

There was one, and only one, answer to that: "Do you promise?"

He would have Malik no other way than as himself. Even to the arguments, the debates, the yelling and the disagreements - because it was always followed by discussion, compromise, and a way forward. If he trusted anyone to keep him properly humble, it was Malik.

[loyalrebel]

"They will be telling stories of a ghost that haunts the halls of Masyaf that whispers Novice when anyone trips over nothing, that is how long I will irritate you and your bloodline." Malik replied solemly, reaching to heavily place his hands on Altair's shoulder.

"They will hear me on the wind all the way in Constantinople. Just because I have walked far in my journey does not mean that I am a completely different man."