Work Text:
It had been a calm day for Malik, with the dusty air transporting Jerusalem’s crowded streets hubbub with it; even if the sun was high in the sky, it had not stopped citizens to go to the market, to reunite with friends in fresh shadowed corners or to meditate in their holy places. Few had come to inquire with the cartograph-scribe for maps or to order texts. Few assassins had come too, it was not wrong to say that no one had come to his bureau. No missive from Masyaf to alert him about the coming of one of his brothers soon, Malik was abandoned to himself in this living and deafening city that didn’t bring him any joy, if the comings and goings of clients and his brothers erased his melancholy, they did not provide the spark he needed to be fully functional.
It was to say that his new rank among the Order wasn’t as stimulating as the last one, when he used to go to adventures and execute his missions; now, he was stuck behind a desk where dust was accumulating and from which he couldn’t flee. A beautiful prison where he would have gladly snatched the colorful tiles and tapestry under a wrath excess if he had gad the will and his other arm to do it more easily.
To break the sorrow that had taken part of his body, the Dai had decided to go to his storage room, where he kept his brothers’ cleans uniforms but also the books that he didn’t ever use or rarely, if anything, and the other many objects that he yet had to find a use; of course, the room also contained personal belongings of his disappeared or fallen predecessors when they still worked there and for which no one had any use. Though it wasn’t what Malik was searching, quite the contrary; he walked towards a wooden chest that he had brought with him from Masyaf. it was a modest chest, as modest as what was preserved inside of its heart, even Malik had forgotten what was kept inside, he did not have touched the chest in years, haven’t opened it in so many years and he ignored what was inside, he had come to forget that the last person to have opened it had been Kadar and that he had yelled at him to search in his belongings. Once in front of the chest, Malik sat cross-legged on the ground and opened the little copper latch that kept what the chest kept safe from curious eyes. To be fair, what the chest kept wasn’t impressive, few objects of no importance that he had kept from a long-gone time but, one particular object caught his eyes He arched an eyebrow before bending forward to have better access and pick it up
The object that Malik fished from his treasure box was soft, silky, it slipped between his fingers, feeling him go back to the nest of old memories of the ex-assassin. Of a lovely pastel color, unchanged despite the years passed hidden there. Carefully, almost reverently, Malik brought the object to his face, he had few memories of his mother, but this once he could recognize it among a thousand. His grip got firmer on the delicate cloth. Even if the veil he had in his hand had been his mother’s, the memory associated with it did not bring him back to her. This veil brought him back to Kadar. Kadar, who always clung to the piece of fabric when he was a kid; Kadar who hold it between his hands to find sleep comforted by his mother’s smell and again, Kadar who had kept the cloth after she passed away. Never Malik would have touched what he unconsciously considered to be sacred and belonging to Kadar and so never did he stored it in his own chest. Without him noticing, the grip on the fabric had tightened and a tear ran down his cheek to land on the fabric, letting there a small darken stain. He took a deep breath to calm his fast-beating heart and as he breathed, he smelled the scent of his mother’s and brother’s smells mixed on the veil for so many years. He closed his eyes to chase the other tears that were about to come.
It’s then that he heard a noise in the inner courtyard. An assassin was there and he could tell who it was without great difficulties. He put the cloth back where he had found it and closed the chest before standing up and walking towards the doorframe where he wiped the last tears away with his djellaba’s sleeve from his face and then took a sufficient expression.
‘Safety and Peace, Novice.’