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Since she was very young, Maria often wondered why her parents were so disgusted by her. Why they would scream at her for not wanting to play with dolls. Why they would slap her every time she tried on pants. Alright, maybe she had a bit of an idea -- because she wasn't what a daughter was supposed to be.
Even when she's really trying, Maria just can't seem to be sweet or polite or compliant as her mother and two younger sisters effortlessly manage to be. Her hands are too big, her voice too quick to rise in a shout, her temper too fierce for the beta or omega she's supposed to become.
Then she grows up and matures, and suddenly she's even more of a freak as she already is. Who has heard of an Alpha woman?
She's disgusting, she's an aberration, and when her parents offer to fix the problem by marrying her off to this twat Peter Hallaton, it's nothing short of a disaster because even for a man with heretical tastes, she's freakish.
"You have a very nice cock, dear Maria" sneers her husband, "but the cunt and breasts ruin the appeal. Unless you wish to get rid from these... ?"
She endures four years of mockery and ridicule before gathering herself and asking for an annulment. Hallaton is far too happy to grant her this wish -- without her in his way, he will indulge his passion for proper men, Alpha men without extra and unwanted parts.
What a disaster she makes: too male for her parents, too female for her husband. Why would God ever thought such a monster needed to exist on this world?
That's part of the reason why she decides to enlist for the Crusade to the Holy Land -- in this country, maybe enlightment will come to her. The other part of the reason is purely Alpha -- a thirst for fighting and glory, a burning wish to prove herself. If she manages to gain honour and renown through her martial prowess, surely she can't be so worthless?
So she goes. It's harder than it ought to be to acquire pants, a sword and chainmail, a helmet, but once Maria holds these... it's freeing. It's everything she craved and didn't know she wanted. It's the true Maria Thorpe.
Most of the time, she keeps her helmet on and tries to speak in a lower voice or not speak at all -- in her chainmail that flattens her chest, her features covered and her Alpha scent spreading around her, she easily passes as a small man. And it's startling to be respected for once, it's intoxicating even if she cannot help but fear to be discovered.
Fortunately, when her helmet fails her, Robert de Sablé is the one to be there.
"Ah" he makes and his voice strangely rings while his face puckers in confusion and meekness, "you're un garçon manqué?"
Maria ought to flee but... the Grandmaster of the Knights Templar doesn't seem hostile. He actually looks like more uncomfortable than anything.
"What's that?"
"This is... I suppose the literal translation would be a failed boy. It's something that happens -- not very often, praise to God, but it does happen."
When Maria came to the Holy Land searching for answers, she didn't expect this. But apparently, a woman can be Alpha -- there's even a name for it. She's not unique.
She doesn't feel comforted by this, especially when the Grandmaster explains how many of these women are killed as witches and abominations or "healed" through the removal of their unwanted male parts. She's still a freak, she's only not the only one of her kind.
Robert de Sablé offers her a place besides him and she accepts. He's not comfortable around her and she's too weary to think he will ever not be, but from everyone she met, he's the only one who tries to see her as someone instead of treating her as nothing. He's the best she will ever get.
At least, until she meets the Assassin.
She first hates him, this cocky, self-righteous zealot who effortlessly ruins the Knights Templar as if they are nothing but ants to be trampled underfeet. Then she's forced to spend time with him and she gets to smell his scent and it's not at all what she expected.
"How can a man be Omega?" she blurts, and he gazes back at her with a withering golden brown glare.
"How can a woman be Alpha? Just the same, I would expect."
In hindsight, it was rather stupid from her to assume that, moreso after hearing about the Pieces of Eden. If genuine, godly relics can twist a man's mind, if a woman can be a failure of a man, why couldn't a man have womanly parts?
For her defence, she never heard about such a possibility, not even through Robert de Sablé. The Assassin -- Altaïr ibn La'Ahad -- seems unsurprised.
"They probably cut the boys young before raising them as daughters. No one likes a willful bride, and nothing breaks the spirit like being made an eunuch."
He speaks of it so coldly, so impassively, as if it's something expected and Maria can't help but look at his lap.
"Were you..."
"Do I look like a compliant wife to you?" he snorts. "I am an Assassin. If someone takes insult to this, I shall rip their manhood."
He says this matter-of-factly and she entirely believes him. For all his sweet scent, there's nothing sweet about Altaïr ibn La'Ahad, nothing soft or compliant. There's a smoothness, a polished edge reminiscing of a gemstone put on a sword's pommel, hard and unyielding and pitiless. This is how I am, everything in him screams, take it or leave it.
Maria is looking at a mirror when she's in front of him, a looking glass showing her an inverted reflection. Didn't she fought the same battles as him, wanting to escape other people's expectations? Hadn't she struggled with the contradiction that her body was, both too much and not enough of a gender?
Robert de Sablé, may he rest in peace, gave her as much tolerance as he could and for this she gave her loyalty, but Altaïr ibn La'Ahad looks at her to understand her in her whole being and for this Maria gives him her heart as she never was able to offer it before.
What a pair they make, none of them fit to be a husband and none of them fit to be a bride. But maybe this is the way God intended, and at their wedding, Altaïr dons a veil and heavily embroidered robes but Maria renounces her family name and receives a bite on the neck -- they're both and neither, what better way to proclaim it?
"You're not what people expected he would settle with" comments one Assassin afterwards, "but after all, he never does what people expect either. So I suppose you fit together."
And maybe it's the best way to describe them. They never managed to fit the world's expectations, their family and acquaintances' expectations yet unexpectedly, wonderfully fit each other as they never believed another one could.
And really... isn't that what love is supposed to be?