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Masyaf Fortress, November 1178
Every day, Altaïr performs wudhu from a fountain in a quiet corner of the Masyaf Fortress.
Granted, he should be doing this five times a day for his ablutions, but he struggles to remember without his father here to remind him, and he dislikes the way the water drips down his sleeves and soaks the fabric when he washes his forearms.
Getting clean is not the purpose of the act. It is ritual to clean before prayer. It must be done. Cleanliness of the soul began with the body. A necessary tradition, like many of significance, that Altaïr found himself less and less inclined to complete only at the age of thirteen. Two years have passed since he has lost his father, but it feels like no time at all. Mourning did not last long. It was not permitted to drag out grief or it would distract from work.
He examines his face in the reflection of the polished metal of the decorated fountain after removing his hood. The scar through his mouth is a more recent occurrence than his father’s passing, but it is a wound that hurts less, and Altaïr wonders why. He did not know his father as well as he knows his own face.
Altaïr has never much cared for the way he looks, favouring comfort and practicality over vanity. But for the first time, he wonders if he is ugly, and it is a thought that is a product of the disfiguring scar and growing teenage insecurity.
He has never been beautiful like Malik, but he puts that thought aside quickly. Malik’s features were an exceptional case, and aren’t so comparable to his; the boy had beauty beyond any of the other boys - especially so, Altaïr thought - and no one could be in that league. Comparing himself to the other boys though, Altaïr always thought he looked fine.
The scar through his lip paints a different picture to him now though, and it makes him want to wear his hood tighter to him and never take it down.
Shaking his head, he lifts his arm to check the hair growing on his armpits, but it was relatively recently removed as part of ablution and does not yet need to be done again. He checks his face again, this time for hair, and this time to assess its growth in a matter of pride.
His sideburns are long and wispy, but the few hairs on his chin are straggly, and the soft moustache still has growth to give.
A young boy, desperate to be seen as a man.
And a scar that ages him in a way he hates.
Many other Assassins keep beards, but his father did not. Al Mualim wears one proudly too, long and beginning its journey of greying.
Altaïr’s mouth purses as he regards his pitiful moustache and the ugly scar though it, separating the little hair he has. He thinks of Al Mualim stroking a hand through his beard in thought, and he seems to come to a decision before he even realises the shaving blade is in his fingers.
He realises halfway through pressing the blade to his soft skin that he has never done this before, and he has no idea what he is to be doing, but the potential disaster is averted by the interruption of another person entering to use the fountain. It must be prayer time.
Altaïr jumps and turns like he has been caught doing something wrong, but the man looks over the shaving blade in his hand with indifference.
It is Faheem Al-Sayf.
Altaïr relaxes. They have shared less than a dozen handshakes and not more than a single conversation, of which was condolences at his father’s funeral, but he knows the man is not a threat. Still, the boy finds it amenable to just avoid him as much as he can since his father died, to be spared the pitying looks he gets from him.
Faheem decides not to greet Altaïr formally with Safety and Peace today, instead coming over to the fountain without a word so he can perform wudhu as well.
“Bismillah.” He begins, and lowers his hood and rolls up his sleeves, then his shoes come off. He rinses his face and forearms then neck, and back of the head as well.
Altaïr just stands there tensely, blade in hand, and doesn’t continue his own use of the fountain. He doesn’t want the embarrassment of being seen as bad at something; even something he has not once done before.
Eventually, Faheem finishes washing with the running water and shakes off his hands.
“You are friends with my oldest, aren’t you.”
He says it flatly, as though it is a statement he already knows the answer to. Altaïr doesn’t have a clue how. The man is a Master Assassin and far too busy chasing targets to stay too long at Masyaf. Like his own father was.
Altaïr doesn’t even get to tell him all about what good friends he and Malik are, how they spend equal time fighting over petty things to getting along with each other. How much they squabble as much as they laugh.
“He knows of me.” Altaïr shrugs.
Faheem laughs gently. He knows that is an understatement.
Perhaps Malik sat beside his father when he rested from a long awaited return to Masyaf after a mission. Curled up by his warmth, resting his head on his lap as he sprouted his tales and was carried to his bed after falling asleep wrapped in safety and peace.
Altaïr clenches his fists by his sides.
Faheem notices the tight grip on his blade. “Are you trying to shave?”
It’s obvious he is and Faheem already realised it the moment he came in. But instead of biting back with this as he is about to, Altaïr realises the man is using the question as a conversation opener and he seals the unwitty response for something more genuine.
“I know not how.”
Faheem’s face fills with pity, the kind Altaïr hates, and it is a reminder to never be genuine again.
“It is a shame your father is not around anymore to teach you how. Come here, wulid saghir.”
Altaïr freezes at the thought of putting a blade in an older man’s hand to hold to his face. He does not move an inch, nor does he breathe.
Faheem notices his hesitation.
“I’m not going to hurt you. For one, I am not allowed to.”
It is only at this, that Altaïr releases his breath and steps forward. A man’s word meant nothing to him, he could not trust it. The only thing that could be trusted was man’s obligation to follow rules set for them.
The elder takes the blade from Altaïr’s offering hand, eyeing his lower face.
“That is quite the scar for a Novice not yet permitted to carry weapons. It puts some of mine to shame.”
Altaïr keeps his eyes forward and not up at the towering man above him. His eyes are level with the red sash tied just above his waist, and he looks at all the knives and blades adorning the belts instead of answering.
“I wonder if this is why you wear the hood so often.”
It is. He was told the scar is unsightly, to cover it. Yet Altaïr had strangely grown to like the way the hood blocks out things around him and allows him to focus directly on only what is ahead. The anonymity it offered.
And he hated that he had grown to love the hood this way. How much more pain must he have to suffer through to find love for being an Assassin?
“It almost looks as though you tried to shave already.” Faheem tries to lighten the mood when he sees the scar in question begin to curve with a frown forming under it.
“It was a punishment for speaking out of turn.”
He pauses, any humour gone.
“To strike the face is wrong in any context, be it anger, punishment or otherwise. Given by whose hand, may I ask?” He says finally, tilting Altaïr’s chin to begin shaving.
“By the only one here allowed to bestow punishment.”
Faheem’s brows crinkle. Perhaps in concentration, perhaps the turn in conversation.
“The only one capable is God. Al Mualim is not God.”
“He may as well be.” Altaïr mutters. “If we have men on Earth standing above us dealing in mercies and punishments then what need do we have of God?”
“Is that what he hopes you to believe?”
It must be what Al Mualim wants him to believe. Because it is what Altaïr believes.
“You are well spoken for a boy so young. A boy forced to grow too quickly, perhaps.”
“Like all of us in this life.”
“You are certainly right about that.” Faheem murmurs, dragging the small blade delicately across his skin.
Either way, Altaïr thinks himself too old to be stood here like this.
“I’m supposed to do this on my own.” He says.
“But you are not alone.” Faheem hums, thumbing over his jaw for strays.
The boy does often feel warmth, but it is never from another’s touch. He feels warmth most often in his anger, boiling from beneath his skin. He feels warmth during training, swinging the wooden sword so hard his breaths are hot and his skin is flushed. But never in a ruffle of hair or a pinch of his cheeks. Never in a hug so tight it would make him believe he could last the desert night without an outer layer.
And so it is the hunger, and being so starved of human closeness that makes Altaïr stand quietly and let the Master Assassin continue. A guise of excuse under the incompetence and the ritualistic tradition of cleanliness, perhaps, to allow the touch to occur to begin with. Thick fingers stroke over his face along with the dulled blade - a sharp contrast to soft fingerpads. His hands are comically oversized, palms large and padded, but gentle.
Altaïr doesn’t trade touches with Al Mualim either, not like this. Not in the way that makes him feel cared for. Looked after, like a child should.
Altaïr only vaguely remembers hugs with his father. He wonders when the last time was that Faheem hugged his sons. If he hugged them every time he left the Fortress, should he not be lucky enough to come back.
He wonders what a hug from Al Mualim would feel like; what he sees of his hands and arms are slim and veiny, boney-knuckled and sharp.
“I wonder too.” Faheem replies thoughtfully, hands still busy, and Altaïr had not realised he had said that last sentence out loud. He jumps lightly at his voice, expecting to be chastised for disrespect, but the only chastising from Faheem is a quiet tut under his breath and readjusting Altaïr back into the position he had moved out of.
“I wonder too,” he starts shaving again, “What love must feel like coming from the same hands that cause pain.”
He drags the dulled blade with care around the scar on Altaïr’s top lip, the remnants of his marred skin and where his hair follicles do not grow, etching out chunks of his light moustache. The growing hair makes the scar stand out even more, and was what made him want to be rid of it; the raised skin parting through it as Prophet Musa did the Red Sea.
“It will feel like fulfilment.” Altaïr answers.
Faheem’s hands pause in the air for a moment, before washing the trimmed hair from the metal into the bowl.
“Love is not something to be earned, young one.”
“Respect must be earned.”
“Love and respect are not interchangeable.”
“What’s the difference.”
Faheem grows quiet. It is a silence of sadness, and contemplation. He is sad that he has to explain this to begin with. But he also isn’t sure if he can put something so macrological into simple words.
After a long few moments, he speaks.
“Trust.”
Altaïr does not say anything for a long time. Then, he eventually argues:
“But trust is earned.”
“And love grows after. Like a watered seedling. Where rain falls, forests grow.”
“Seeds don’t need water to sprout.”
“Initially, perhaps. But it sure helps encourage it. It’s only after the sprout has taken shape and stem, that it requires the water to grow healthily. Love can be as unpredictable as a seed - and trust just as encouraging as water to it. The seed may not grow even with water, and if it does, it may take shape in a way you didn’t expect, if you are not to know what type of seed it is to begin with.” Faheem pauses. “Respect yields no such crop. It is as painfully predictable as a planted pebble. No amount of water will cause it to sprout. That is the difference, Altaïr.”
The teen boy hardly listens to a word, instead opening his mouth to argue something again, but he is cut off with Faheem’s large, flat hand stopping him.
“Do not speak a moment. I must be careful around this side.”
It is a clever way to keep him quiet for now, to make him actually think about what words have just been spoken to him. Faheem is a good father, Altaïr is strangely glad to note, skilled at engaging children in conversation and pulling unruly ones into line without the need for force or violence.
In respect of his skill, Altaïr quietens himself to take it all in over a long moment. The only sounds are the scrape of the shaving blade. When he finishes the bumpy section of his scar, he takes it as a cue to begin speaking again.
“What about a lonely desert plant? One that grows far beyond the oases and has learned to live without water.”
“A lonely plant is still a plant. All plants need water to live.” Faheem sounds vaguely amused.
“But the harsh climate of the desert has caused it to adapt. To survive with less water.”
“A cactus will wait for long stretches of time to feel the touch of water, yes.” Faheem says, tracing his fingers over against the freshly shaved skin to wipe away hairs. “But when it does, it will compartmentalise large volumes of the water in itself, hold it like treasure, and ration it to itself to last for next rainy season. But it still needs water all the same. Even in a harsh environment. Especially in a harsh environment. I’d say it would make it all the more thirstier for water than a regular plant.”
Is that what it was? Did Altaïr crave trust the way he craved respect? The way a cactus gasps for water in the dry season? Did the harsh desert in which Altaïr lived make him thirstier for it?
Faheem currently holds a blade against his face and Altaïr feels nothing but safe. Would he trust Al Mualim to shave his face the same way, given what he had done to him already?
He respects Al Mualim, but he does not trust him.
He respects Faheem Al-Sayf, but he also trusts him.
That is the difference, Altaïr.
Blinking, Altaïr goes silent again, and both Assassins remain that way for a while till Faheem has to clean the blade under the water flow.
“What do you like to do, little Novice? In your spare time?”
Altaïr watches the hair run away with the current and finds he doesn’t have an answer.
“I practise drills in my spare time.”
“I meant something beside training.” The man dried it off with the linen of his robe.
“I… don’t much have hobbies.”
“Reading or writing, perhaps?”
“Malik is the avid reader and writer of us both. I don’t do much of that.” He lies.
Al Mualim was not fond of Altaïr’s persistent need of acquiring knowledge, atributing it as the cause of the young boy's need to constantly question things. The Novice would spend his nights sneaking in out of the libraries, reading in a curled corner and stuffing his books beneath his majlis cushions and between the furniture and the wall. Every crevice possible he could find in the room he shared with Abbas.
“Malik reads and writes because he is expected to. I severely doubt he finds much enjoyment from it. Allah help him should he find himself behind a desk.”
“If you know better then why assume I enjoy it?”
“Because your father did.”
Altaïr’s face droops in vulnerability.
He uncovers the repressed memory from his own mind, a man that looks the way Altaïr is to look when he is older, sat at his desk in the room he shares with his son, writing and reading scriptures from his desk, a smaller mattress pallet set beside a larger one in the other corner. It’s a memory he cast aside when Abbas’ father came into the room to cut his own throat, his blood spill souring the lingering smell of his father from his mattress. After that, the memory of Umar reading and writing at his desk started to fade like the scent of him from the larger pallet, as did most of his memories.
“You knew him well,” Altaïr says questioningly.
More than Altaïr himself, at any rate.
Faheem nods. “I did. He also wore the hood all the time, but that was rather because his taqiyah kept falling off while climbing buildings.”
Altaïr bursts into laughter at the ridiculous image so hard he almost digs his face against the blade in Faheem’s hand.
Even with the near miss of an accidental scrape, he is still laughing.
It’s the first time he has smiled in so very long. It feels odd the way his lips stretch now, but he supposes he must get used to it.
Faheem smiles at the sight of the amused teenager, going back to finishing off the final stray hairs that have escaped his careful attention.
“He enjoyed being an Assassin. He too was favoured by Al Mualim, and I’m sure he enjoyed that as well.”
Suddenly, Altaïr’s face falls so fast it gives him whiplash.
“You think I… enjoy Al Mualim’s favouritism?” He says in disbelief. “And what his favouritism earns me?”
His lip curls when he says it, either disgust or just the knowledge of what is made of his mouth now, but it feels less alien than smiling. The miniscule action does well to bring Faheem’s attention to it in reminder.
“I mean–”
Regret washes over his face, but it’s too late to apologise to a damaged boy with no hope of healing.
“I can do the rest myself,” Altaïr suddenly jerks away. “The way I’m supposed to.”
Faheem’s hands drop to his sides in defeat.
“I’ll become a Master Assassin by myself too. The way I’m destined to.”
Faheem straightens up, relenting.
“As you wish, Altaïr.” His voice is retired.
The boy almost snatches the blade from the elder man with the roughness he uses to reclaim it.
Not a soul understood. Assassins did not understand trust or love. They only respected skill. Well, he would be the most skilled of all, and he would do it without Al Mualim’s suffocating rules, or the disgrace that came from breaking them.
“Baba?” Comes a call into the courtyard room, when the thick door opens, and the pleased sound of it does not know of the tension it is interrupting.
Behind the wood are the dark brown eyes of Malik, and they fade visibly when they see Faheem and Altaïr stood together. It is a rare occurrence for a Master Assassin to be around the Fortress for so long, and here Malik’s father was, shaving the face of another's son.
More reasons to be jealous of him, no doubt; first winning the attention of Al Mualim, and now his father.
The Mentor always did say that Malik would just be an enemy in waiting.
“It’s time to pray.” Malik says. His eyes have hardened into something else entirely, his voice firm to match.
“One moment, wulid. I will join you in a moment.” Faheem dismisses his son, and it makes Altaïr want to scream until his voice is hoarse.
Stop! See to your own sons! Stop favouring me with attentions I did not ask for!
“Care to pray with us?” he asks when Malik has left - but not without another glare to his rival before closing the door behind him.
Altaïr doesn’t answer. He has had enough of conversing and does not want to speak anymore.
I did not ask. I did not ask for kindness. Nor did I ask for pain.
Speaking was what earned him the disfigurement to begin with.
Al Mualim had been so fond of telling him to hold his tongue until the time came he thought to do it for him, with a blade. Culture and religion meant nothing to the man, nor did the fear of God's wrath at harming his creation. He was as casual with his strikes to Altaïr's face as he was with the insults he spat, because in all the important ways, the young Novice was not a creation of God, but a creation made and moulded from clay by Al Mualim himself. A tool to be used, nothing more. He raised and trained the boy, fed him, clothed him, taught him skills to kill. He owned him like property and he was free to disfigure him and discard him as he wanted.
Altaïr still thinks himself lucky to have come out of it with something only cosmetically damaging and not something leaving him with a speech impediment or worse. Though perhaps that had been intentional. Perhaps this done to him was just a warning for what would come should he speak out of line again.
He turns towards the fountain and shows Faheem his back, not caring how rude it is.
Taking silence for his answer, Faheem finally steps backwards.
“This will be the last occurrence in which you put the hood on out of shame.” He says before he leaves. “Let this be the final time you endure humiliation for the sake of respect.”
“This isn’t humiliation or shame. This is survival.” Altaïr watches the way the water trickles from the fountain, and re-fixes his hood upon himself, finally feeling at ease. “It’s always been survival.”