Work Text:
The city of Jerusalem was bathed in gold. Plumes of sand and dust glided across the ground, mirroring the movements of the bustling crowd. Sweltering waves of heat snaked like one, giant python across the busy landscape.
Markets buzzed with activity, alive in the primary hour of the day. Skeletal husks lay defeated in piles at the side of roads, reaching out to grasp aimlessly at any robes, pleading for money, food. Their plights left unanswered- left to get swept away by the flurry of faded material.
Children ran through the mass. The soles of their feet were already blackened like coals in a fire and the pitiful rags they called clothes flapped in a nonexistent breeze. Smiles wide, teeth yellowed, but eyes dulled. Dulled in the day that never ended.
A white robe stood out like a beacon amongst the grit and dirt. A hood pulled low over his sharp face. He weaved through the crowd like a needle in cloth. Always a small distance behind his prey.
Every housewife worth her salt knows that a needle always pulls a thread.
The assassin had, over the weeks, faintly started to pick up ends and odds… ideas. A small sense of wrong had festered like a parasite in his deepest subconscious. He had not made anyone aware of it save a hasty scrawl written on a scrap of paper - tied to a dove and sent to Masyaf.
The city had experienced a new set of deaths. Deaths not related to the Creed. The general population had simply waved them off as sufferers of a particularly extreme case of heatstroke.
Now here he was in present day. Guided only by an instinct and many scattered clues carefully planted for him - always just enough to kindle a small fire of suspicion - that told him the man in the deep red robe was related to these mere “incidents.”
He quickened his pace, finally deciding on a plan of action.
Moving to just behind his target, he stretched out, his wrist at the start of what would have been a hard twist outwards to unleash his hidden blade. Then the thread pulled taut. A figure slipped past him, barely a shadow. Feathered fingers trailed across his cheek. It was a slow, intimate gesture, yet it happened faster than a viper’s electric fury. A breath. A single caress was all it took.
Then the moment ended. A woman? There had been no woman. No one had touched his face. It must have been the heat finally tugging at the last pieces of his sanity. He frowned, scanning the dozens of faces. Yet it had seemed so vivid-
That was the last thought that ever crossed his mind.
***
The crowd flowed around the collapsed man. His once clean robes slowly fading to a brown as layers of dust settled like sheets over his body. It earned a few curious glances, but nothing more.
Must have been a heatstroke. It’s been much warmer lately.