ii λ

[scattare]

[Room Filter]

[Now that she'd completely gutted the apartment suite that she and Ezio share, and given it all the riches the two of them had become accustomed to growing up, she spends most of her time there. And lounging in front of a fire with a good bottle of wine, and classic poetry, is definitely the way to spend an evening.

And like all good evenings, it's the duty of an older brother to make himself a nuisance]

Not now, Ezio.

Comments

[assassino]

[He closes the door behind him, quietly, and crosses the room to sit in one of the armchairs. Normally he'd drape himself there without giving a damn, but today he's stiff and serious. He sits like someone with a lot of weight on his shoulders.

Borgias have a tendency of doing that.]

Your book can wait, Claudia. There is something –– some things –– we need to discuss.

[scattare]

[Her eyebrow arches, mildly and she glances at him over the rim of the book. She needs to gauge his mood here, to determine if this is something actually worth devoting her attention to. She adores him really, but she's also spent so long without him that him in her space some days, is just incredibly grating.

The look however, fills her stomach with dread, especially considering their recent happenings, and being suckered into a new world. So alright, he wins, she closes the book and lowers it into her lap, giving her undivided attention]

What has happened?

[assassino]

[He's quiet for a moment, trying to think of how to word it. He's glad for the crackle of the fire, or else it'd be all too quiet in that moment.

In many ways, he feels like he has let Claudia down already. Between all the time away and much progress but still no justice for their family, it is difficult to burden her with another truth.]

I have spoken to a number of historians, and their stories match. I know when Rodrigo Borgia will die... and how.

[scattare]

[She sits up a little more, some of the dread easing out into the same calm she'd been enjoying before. She's not too concerned by the topic, even if she'd been unsure how to feel on the matter. Rodrigo Borgia deserved to die, for what he'd done to her family, and she wouldn't be sorry to see him go.

Ezio promised to avenge their family, and she'd believed him, the how and when doesn't seem so consequential in the face of that]

Why would you search for such information?

[assassino]

I realized it was available to me, if I looked for it.

[He looks straight at her, feeling adrift in a sea of mistakes. He should have struck sooner.]

He won't be dead until 1506, Claudia. Fifteen years from now. And he won't die by my hand.

[scattare]

[Looking up how you were going to kill him seemed silly, considering you were going to going to go back to do it without any of Paradisa's influence. That is, until she you know, hears the rest of that.

She's caught somewhere between anger and shock, and she sits up further, swinging her legs over the edge of the couch to touch down on the floor]

What did you just say?

[assassino]

[Ezio watches her, carefully. He feels like he's making a mistake, here, but then again, he fucked it up by looking for answers he shouldn't have gotten already.

And then he looks away.]

Rodrigo Borgia will die in 1506, due to illness or at the hands of his son.

[scattare]

[Her fingers are clenching her book so hard, she's leaving little grooves of nails in the soft leather covers, a faint tremble running through her system, in her anger]

That is not a very amusing joke, brother. [She just needs it confirmed one more time, because he deserves for this to be hard for him]

[assassino]

[That frustrates him a touch, and he frowns.]

It is not a joke, Claudia. This is serious.

[scattare]

[She was afraid that you'd say that. And really, her temper is rather legendary, and she doesn't really think much about it. As soon as she hears those words, she's sans book and across the room hand rearing back to slap him across the face as hard as she can manage, before the actions even really register.

Once they do, she's not really sorry, hand rearing back to repeat the action unless he's aiming to stop her]

[assassino]

[All those years of combat would be pretty pathetic if he couldn't catch a slap swung out of rage, but he'd sooner get hit by his sister –– especially when he kind of deserves it –– than rise to a fight with a woman. He cringes when she hits him once, cheek stinging from the heel of her hand, but the second he ducks away from and lifts his hand in protest.]

Claudia!

[scattare]

[She lets him duck away from the second, instead of attempting to follow and continue to slap him around. Her eyes may be watery, but they're narrowed and her cheeks are flushed with complete rage]

How could you do this?!

[Because honestly, there is no way you didn't do this on purpose. Hell the first time you LET HIM GO]

[assassino]

[He doesn't want to be chased around the room by her, so he opts to try and restrain her by reaching to grab her by the forearms.]

Claudia -- Claudia -- it was not the answer I was expecting!

[scattare]

[She'll still, at that. But she doesn't exactly look any more eager to calm down]

You failed Ezio! What were you expecting?

[Not only did you fail, you abandoned her when she needed you the most, left her effectively without any family at all, when she was just a young girl, for something she tried to understand and believe in...Only to find out you couldn't accomplish it? Or chose not to? Everything that happened to them after their father and brothers died, it was for nothing?]

[assassino]

[He holds onto her, trying not to be angry -- or at least not be angry at her. ]

I was expecting to have slit his throat within the year! I have no reason to fail, no reason to let him live that long –– but I believe I know why he eludes me, too. If you'd listen instead of flailing at me like a harpy, I can explain!

[scattare]

[sdfdfggfh SHE IS NOT A HARPY! But she knows reacting to that in anyway is just going to make her look much like the opposite, so she only tries to jerk back out of his hold instead]

Fine. Give me your excuses. [No logic allowed her Ezio, not unless what you say is really, really good. And makes up for all the rest of this]

[assassino]

He becomes Pope, Claudia. He hides himself away in Rome, behind the Papal armies.

[scattare]

And armies have before stopped you?

[Isn't sneaking around and killing them anyway, basically your entire job description?]

[assassino]

No –– but I don't know the future. Something clearly prevents me from killing him.

[Perhaps his own death.]

[scattare]

That changes nothing, Ezio.

[She is still incredibly angry, because it still means everything that happened between their family because of his absences, because of what he got meddled in, was for nothing. Her family was never avenged and even if she didn't exactly expect to feel pleased by that man's death, she would have had closure, and...Now she has nothing. Her brother is easy to blame for that, right now]

[assassino]

And if he finishes his work and has me killed before I can achieve my goal?

[scattare]

I would not know the difference.

[She'd have just assumed he'd got tired of coming back to his poor little family, and stuck to his adventurous life. It was inevitable. Inevitable for the part of her that still sharply remembered being young, and frightened and abandoned]

[assassino]

[That causes him to bristle.]

Prego? You would not notice if I were killed and he lived on?

[scattare]

It is not as if you write! You barely visit! You are not meant to be seen, Ezio. Do you think he would pen me a letter, informing me of your end?

[You're not a soldier. Effectively to most people, you're already dead. Who exactly, is going to tell her about this?] I do not even know his name, where I am from. This Pope would be no one to me.

So yes, brother, I would not notice.

[And it's pretty much all your own doing, isn't that fun?]

[assassino]

Do you think I enjoy being apart from you, and Mother? It took Leonardo and I a month to travel from Firenze to Venezia, I cannot afford to leave my work for many months at a time just to visit.

And if I were killed, my allies in Venezia would inform our uncle.