Chapter Text
Malik couldn't remember much of what had happened between Salomon and his amputation. He was sure about the blood, he was sure that he was to the ground when the Templar above him made him watch as Kadar was stabbed. He was sure about the sudden rage, the screaming of the enemy. He was sure that he had held his brother in his arms until the end.
He could vaguely remember somehow riding home, arriving to Masyaf, the worried people stopping in the streets to watch him stumble towards the fortress. Everything after that was a blur, probably due to his extreme blood loss, his exhaustion, the stress, the grief. The only “memory” he had of what had happened after was so cloudy that he couldn't determine to what extent it had been modified and fabricated by his mind. Perhaps it was all a dream and nothing like that had actually happened.
At first, when he had woken up at the infirmary and tried to remember, he had been convinced that his drugged brain had invented everything: it was too surreal to be true. Seeing Altaïr white as a sheet, keeping silent as Al Mualim yelled at him and shook him like a ragdoll… It wasn't Altaïr. The Eagle of Masyaf wouldn’t have allowed to be disrespected this way, he would have fought tooth and nail to protect his ego. He was too proud to ever admit that he had done wrong, Malik knew him too well. Altaïr was unable to show any weakness, even smiling was difficult to him; admitting that he wasn't perfect was to him like admitting he was the lowest scum in history. There was no way that this fool would just stay there, looking into nothing while his mentor yelled at him, instead of acting like the insolent, fragile jerk he was.
But then he had heard rumors, he had caught whispers between the doctors and novices went to talk to him about it when they met him in the corridors: Altaïr had gone mute. Young assassins were adamant, and the nurses had confirmed that it was not just gossips: the man had not said a single word since Salomon. Nothing. Not a hello, not a fuck you after being downgraded, no thank you after getting healed. Nothing.
The other assassins found the situation very funny, as they could roast him endlessly without him answering or even reacting. The novices seemed to have been ordered not to approach him or help him in his quests, but Malik had heard several times younglings giggling about how they had pranked Altaïr.
Malik knew that, like the doctors and Al Mualim, he probably should too have been worried about him. He knew him better than anyone, and therefore he was the best suited to know that Altaïr was probably the last man who'd wanted to be mute. But he couldn't. Every possible care he could have given was buried under six feet of anger and grief. Every time he heard Altaïr's name, every time he just thought about him, he was overwhelmed by pure rage. He had stolen everything from him, and yet nurses and Al Mualim seemed to be more worried about this profound jerk than him.
He had eventually got promoted to the bureau of Jerusalem and had happily accepted that offer; getting away from Masyaf couldn't do harm, and he was sure that it would help him move on.
And he had done well, as being the rafiq of Jerusalem finally allowed him the space and time he needed to grief and rethink things. Instead of the noisy and crowded Masyaf, he now had to take care of the assassins who came to Jerusalem, mainly novices, of the groceries and keep contact with the informants in the city. It was exhausting as well, but not enough for him to dislike it. But still exhausting enough so that he didn't feel like a failure; being a master assassin was a wearisome lifestyle, but he was used to it and it was to him the proof of his worth; in consequence, the change of position had been really harsh. Plus, losing his arm and title had shattered any self-worth he might have had before, so the sentiment of belonging that his new position provided him was especially welcome.
It was nice to hear news from the city when novices would come, to be able to focus on his maps. No one in the brotherhood could escape a life of constant fear, that knot in the guts and the never-ending tension in his whole body still were present and would be until the end. The life of any assassin was not an easy one; as a Dai, he had to be careful about the secrecy of the bureau, of healing the ones who came back hurt, of making sure that they all came back home alive.
He knew that he would at least once have to go and bring back the body of a brother who wouldn't come back, and that idea made him sick. He knew that it sometimes happened, that it was normal: even with all the precaution in the world, only one error was enough to lose everything. He knew that too well.
But when that would happen, he just knew that he wouldn’t be able to convince himself that he wasn't guilty. It was now his job to take care of whoever came in Jerusalem, and if anyone was killed within the walls of the city, he would consider himself the only culprit.
But for now, everything was fine. There was currently only one assassin in mission in the city, a novice whose name he couldn't recall. Khalid, or something like that. The teen had stuttered when he had introduced himself, and Malik was terrible at remembering names. He had received a few requests from different people who wanted replicas from old maps and had spent the day working on them. The weather was nice, the novice was sleeping in the yard after a day of successful runs across the roofs. He felt good, for the first time in weeks.
Everything suddenly stopped being fine when he saw Altaïr walk into the bureau.