queenofheartsrp | Third target ❖dream

Third target ❖dream

[Her hood is pulled low as she walks through a darkened street, press of the crowd around her as she pushes her way past men with heavy boxes and ladies with long dresses that sweep across dirty ground. She blends with the crowd and they are none the wiser as to who moves through them, not even the guards, resplendent in their bright armour, Borgia insignia.

A herald talks, preaching and there is a nearby bench two men on it and she sits between them, hands clasped and head bowed as she takes a moment to listen to him.]

Attenzione, attenzione! The assassino has been sighted on the streets of Roma with many wanted posters placed on buildings. If sighted, a member of le guardie should be informed. This man is very dangerous, please be cautious and vigilant.

[She smirks, gets to her feet and as the man begins to give further announcements about outbreaks of plagues in other city states, she approaches and palms him a few florins to which he nods. She makes her way through the crowd once more until people run, the clash of steel in the air, ruins of a Borgia tower in the background. But that is not where her attention lies.

Her attention is focussed on a young woman, fighting against the guards, all angeer and youth standing up for her livelihood or her business and she joins in, long years of practice and experience as her hidden blade punches through the throat of a guard from behind. It startles the others enough for the young woman to cut another guard open. She switches to her sword, slicing open the belly of the remaining guard as his innards spill out onto the dirty Rome street.

When it's over, she kneels before Ezio.]

The liberation of Roma has begun.

[Her hand on the woman's shoulder urges her to stand, bloodied weapons put away, guards dead around them.]

I still breathe thanks to you. What skill I have is yours, if you will have me.*

[Ezio nods, points to where the woman should head to and adjusts her cape and hood as she leaves the bodies behind. A bard spots her and is already in pursuit, strumming away on his lute.]

[[ooc: translations:
attenzione - attention; assassino - assassin; le guardie - the guards. *Dialogue lifted from an in-game encounter.]]

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[Jill watches, cloaked in grey and nodding approvingly whenever it struck her to. Such strength, such courage, and there had been no faltering in her eyes. That would be a woman she would have congratulated...if she had not disappeared. The other, though, she could still convey her sentiments to.

Following along, she acted nothing but casual until she was standing close enough.]

That was admirably done. [Though she doesn't smile, the feeling is still in her voice.]

[There is a chance that the other woman would be present somewhere, knowing where to go from the rumours - there is a tower not so far away, pigeon coop marking it where others wait, all of them training to help defend their people.]

It is the only way to do such things.

[She may not like to kill but she grants clean deaths, quick too. And there has to be some honour for the guards, in the eyes of others, to die for their masters in fighting a master assassin.]

[She nods, understanding. Death could be the only way to make the proper impact, to mark a way for change. Some didn't wish to compromise and wanted to keep their tyranny, and death made a statement, breaking apart their reign. Speaking of...]

She spoke of liberation?

[She sighs slowly. Always Templars. Always. What should she say here, without giving too much away? The state of Rome should say enough though, the boarded up buildings, the shifty glances civilians shoot at one another.]

Liberation for the people from Borgia rule. The Pope is corrupt, his son and his daughter too and those who are in power. The people have nothing, they want their lives to be theirs once more.

[It does, it says much, but she has to hear it from the woman's own lips before she can make her proposition.]

Would you like another set of hands to aid you in this work?

[Why not go back to what she already knows how to do? Certainly she won't have the control she did before, but freedom was always a goal worth going towards, doing anything you could.]

What skills do you have?

[She is always willing to take help where it comes - it is how Assassin's flourish, not just the Brotherhood but the mercenaries, thieves and courtesans who aid them in their fight.]

Those who rule are powerful, the guards well trained and their blades sharp.

I know some combat, and also how to obtain and use information.

[It's a modest statement of her abilities, but boasting is out of place for now.]

No matter their strength, they are still human.

You say human [she pitches her voice low, just in case there are those who might overhear] as though you are not one. What are you then?

I'm human, but at the same time, I'm not, and I am Remade. [She pushes the cloak back from her right shoulder enough to expose the claw. After a moment, she lets it fall again.] The leaders in my city changed me to this, made me less of a human, as punishment. [She nearly spits the word out.]

[She frowns at the claw and at the thought that someone would do that to another; there are cruel enough punishments in the world without...whatever that is.]

Why would they do something like that? Re...make you as it were? Such a thing, while cruel, does not seem possible at all.

It is a reminder of my crime, it was meant to punish. It reminds you that you are now less than human with every look at your reflection. As for it being possible...are either of the terms thaumaturgy or magic familiar? That's what they used.

[For a moment she bites her lip, looking slightly less composed than she did before. Explaining the Remade to someone new was always a bit difficult.]

And for the way they used their power to define who was human and who was not, I struck out at them back home with everyone else who wanted them gone.

What was your crime? [Why do people keep talking about things she doesn't know of or things that are consigned to old wives tales and other such stories? She shakes her head as answer though before elaborating.] I do not know the first time but magic does not exist.

[Or not in the way people would believe; illusions from Pieces of Eden and nothing more.]

So an uprising against those in power, like the people here who oppose Borgia rule.

Accidental murder. [She nods briefly.] Thaumaturgy is a sort of elemental force that exists in my world, that people have learned to use to do things that seem impossible, like my arm. That's how I was altered.

[Jill nods again.] So you know I have experience working with that situation.

[She doesn't hesitate to catch up with Ezio after watching the scene, avoiding the bard neatly and matching pace with Ezio.]

You spoke of revolution before. Perhaps I should have guessed you were an instigator.

[She smiles beneath her cowl, more comfortable here - even in a dream.]

I had hoped to keep things secret even if they seem like the very distant past for many. And it was Machiavelli who helped to put me on this path here.

I can understand.

[She was used to keeping secrets, ones that she shouldn't have to keep, but it was a habit ingrained into her by a lifetime of fear. Even here, there was an element of it simply not being anyone else's business. Still, she answered people's questions, when they had them.]

Who is Machiavelli?

[As long as she keeps her role as Assassin to herself then she feels safer; she might not know these people but some secrets are best kept close.]

Niccolò Machiavelli is a friend of mine, a philosopher and writer. The situation in Roma...it called to him.

[He's an Assassin too but she is sure that will be stricken from the history books as well as her.]

I have not met any philosophers or writers interested in such things, myself.

[Books had been something of a luxury, where she was from, but the brothers in the temple had put quite a bit of emphasis on her studies while she was growing up there. She'd never thought of it as much of an advantage, as a soldier, only in that she was a well-educated as possible.]

If I am honest, there are times that the man drives me insane.

[There's a smile as she says it because Machiavelli and La Volpe had caused far too many headaches she'd had to mediate between as if they were too spoiled children.]

You have met soldiers though?

Perhaps it's better I've avoided encountering any, then.

[She smiles back, though it's a quiet and muted expression, and really quite brief.]

Yes. I was raised by them. Though they would not call themselves soldiers.

[Resistance fighters, brothers of the house of masks, some of them priests. No armies and no ranks. Those came from the North, not from within the South.]

They have an annoying habit of complicating a situation that is already complicated.

[A gaggle of vigilantes are not too far off, spouting furious accusations against the Borgia that make her smirk perhaps a little. It is heartening to know that there are so many who choose the same side as she when it feels as if all the known world might as well be against her.]

Oh? What would they call themselves then madonna?

But still useful enough to inspire, it seems.

[The group catch her attention, too, always alert and observant despite her blinded eye.]

Brothers. Resistance fighters.

[She laughs quietly and continues on. There is no real destination - it is a time where she merely travels, picks up information and sees if there are those who need her aid as there so often are. A guard gallops past, horse and rider decked in heavily plated armour and there is an uneasy feeling in her guit. She never knows what they might be up to.]

Every world must have such things to fight against unfair rule and tyranny. To stand up for the people especially if they have been subjugated.

My world is split in two. One part is free. The other, where I was born... I am told the word is 'fascism'.

Two completely separate halves with such different ideologies? [Fascism isn't a word that exists in her life but she guesses that it must mean oppression of some sort if one part of the world is free.]

So strange to have such a split. Corruption is more in pockets - it is corrupt in Roma because the Pope is the most powerful man in the world. He may crown kings, give his support to things. His influence is great. And his son as captain of the Papal Army extends that influence through means the Pope himself is unable to.

There was a war. Perhaps there are pockets of different thinking. It is the simplest way of explaining. [And it was easy to have an idealised notion of the North, living in the South. One was freedom and the other was fear. Very few had the chance to find out if it was true.]

[She listens to Ezio's explanation quietly.] A poison, then. Quiet. In places where there should be trust. [Corruption was never an issue she'd really dealt with. There was nothing secret about anything Prevent did, because there was no one to hold them to account for any of it.] There hasn't been a Pope in my world for many years. And most priests are allies.

I hope for your sake that there are; if I have been taught anything over the years it is that there are always pockets of people who share ideologies. They band together tightly when they are oppressed, for both good and ill. [There must surely be small groups of Templar out there in other countries where they do not have influence or sway yet.]

[She laughs unexpectedly.] Poison is a favourite of this family; cantarella is their poison of choice and Lucrezia is certainly a master of it. [But she nods; she knows that they have a sympathetic Pope now but the dream has not given her this.] There are some priests who only want what they are taught but men are men and will always have ambition.

Yes. They are who I fought beside. [She'd done her part against Prevent before travelling to the North, although some would say her escorting a dreamchaser for so many years was more important than any of the damage she inflicted on Prevent.]

Then that is not so surprising. [A small smile.] Yes. There are those that go with the soldiers, to use their faith for luxury. But most work to help the people. [She tilts her head slightly.] I would say both have ambition, in their way.

And if we are talking then you must have been successful then.

[She nods at that.]

Here it is the word of God that is law [or that is what is believed] and if you oppose the church you will not get far. There was a priest I knew who managed to take Firenze for his own, to try to have people give up all their worldly possessions to live the same monastic life as he did but it did not end well.

[Which is an understatement but still, she should not speak of the Templars, not yet when no one seems to know of them or their reach and influence.]

In part. The war continues.

[And she'd left it, lived in relative safety. Before being brought to the Gardens, at least.]

It seems difficult for people to give up these things. I don't truly understand it. [Material possessions had never mattered much to her, even when she had the luxury to actually have them. They were just things. They could be replaced.]

I have to admit that even when I was not there, I put money into my uncle's villa and the surrounding town - rebuilding it, buying art and I looked forward to the day I could retire there but my mother and sister lived there too. [And she had lived as a noble from birth until she was seventeen - it had been hard to make the adjustment to someone who had so little. She had to learn how to steal to get buy at times when she had never had to before.] I can understand it though. There is a sense of security in things and of prestige, status. Not that it is good but I know why it is done all the same.

A sense of security.

[Nothing more than a sense, she thinks, although she would admit walls and a roof gave shelter. But everything else could be taken away far too quickly, it was better to put your time into protecting the things that were really important.]

Though, for family, that makes more sense.

[Especially if you couldn't be with them, for whatever reason.]

That home was destroyed so the security did not last forever. Now...now we all keep to other surroundings, harder to target.

[Her mother, a former noble, running a brothel of all places. Ezio still does not approve of such a thing but Maria and Claudia are safe and they're in the same city as she meaning they can actually see one another.]

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Third target ❖dream

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