xix λ exploration

[assassino]

----- Stephanie Brown -----

She admitted to having affections for me, but acknowledged that they will not come to pass. I did not kiss her or lead her astray, but I thought you should know in case she goes to you weeping.

[He's just leaving her a message, of course. So he doesn't get his ass kicked.]


------

[Here's a fairly chipper tone:]

There are conversations about expeditions... I wonder, curiously, why there is so much waiting involved. There is no need to amass supplies nor food when the castle gifts it so readily, no need to search for patrons to fund the expedition, so why do people not simply pack up a horse and depart? Even women and children could travel easily, like this.

People from the future are terribly pampered.

[Meanwhile, you can find Ezio in the garden, picking flowers for his lady.]

Comments

[assassino]

[That gets a laugh out of him...]

You, as some delicate maiden, to be protected and sheltered from others' thoughts... you were no different than Lucrezia, then, only trained for war!

[molotov]

Nyet, no. Not protected and sheltered. My father did not want me to rebel or lose focus, and how could I, if he was the only one I ever spoke to in depth? It had nothing to with me. It was the protection of his crown jewel.

[assassino]

You think Rodrigo Borgia gives a shit about Lucrezia's innocence for her own benefit? He knows he cannot marry off a girl who isn't a maiden, it is for the protection of his own self. Why do you think girls like her are so often banned from being unchaperoned around men?

[molotov]

I think you do not know anything about being a father, or being a girl and having a father.

[assassino]

Well, I am neither a girl nor a father, but I know what powerful men think in my time.

[And he'll take shots at Rodrigo Borgia whenever he can.]

[molotov]

So a farmer welcomes strange men into the bed of his daughter?

[assassino]

A farmer cannot afford a good dowry and thus his daughter has more freedom to choose her husband, whether he is someone she loves or someone who gets her pregnant.

[molotov]

So her father does not care? Are you really so naive to think that men, regardless of stature, do not want their daughters to remain unspoiled?

[assassino]

Molotov, no. He will just not be as aggressive as a man who has something to lose -- like Rodrigo Borgia.

[molotov]

Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. My father did not care whether or not I had sex, outside of the fact that it might distract me. What he did care about was the fact that he did not want to see me die in childbirth like my mother did. And so I was never allowed to have sex.

How can you be convinced that Lucrezia's father does not care for her as his daughter as mine did for me? Regardless of what you think, I assure that, in his own way, he does.

[assassino]

[scoff]

I find it difficult to believe Rodrigo Borgia has any redeeming traits. If Sforza had any respect for their alliance, he would not have abused his Borgia wife. If Rodrigo Borgia doesn't care enough to see to her safety, then what does he care for about her? Your father cared for you. Rodrigo Borgia is just pretending.

[molotov]

You can be blinded by whatever hatred you have for him. It does not change the fact that Rodrigo Borgia lives a life that you do not get to see or experience. He is human just as much as you, and he has all the corresponding emotions that go along with it. I hate him for what he has done to Lucrezia, but I have no doubt that he loves her and thought it in her best interest. Unless Sforza revealed his intentions, how is Rodrigo Borgia to know what his daughter is subject to? I can barely get her to admit that perhaps it is not in her best interests to be married to such a man -- I doubt she could ever be pressed to tell her father that she has been abused.

It is much easier to mentally remove the humanity of your enemies, I know. But that does not make them inhuman.

[assassino]

[Sometimes he really hates Molotov -- not because she's wrong, but because she says things he doesn't really want to hear.]

Why bother defending what he's managed to do right? If you hate him, just hate him. Pointing out that he isn't pure evil doesn't make him any better of a man, or any less deserving of death.

[molotov]

Because the world is not black and white. By your own reasoning, Cristina should have run as far away from you as possible. Yet I do not see you encouraging such a thing.

[assassino]

Did I say that? [Either way, denial.] I did not say that. Even so, I work in the dark to serve what is good in the world. To protect people like Lucrezia and Cristina. Rodrigo Borgia is self-serving.

[molotov]

That does not matter in this line of logic. Your line, I might add. According to this train of thought, you have done things that Cristina abhors, mostly killing people, regardless of why. So she should hold only to that, just like you are doing by trying to insist that Rodrigo Borgia does not care for his own daughter because he married her off to a man that I am sure he did not know would beat her.

[assassino]

[He makes a dismissive gesture and sighs.]

I don't want to argue this anymore.

[molotov]

[Molotov lights a victory cigarette!]

Haven't I told you before about getting into arguments you cannot win?

[assassino]

[Very slight smile.]

Yes... but I am usually poor with lessons unless they beaten into me.

[molotov]

All you have to do is ask, kroshka.

[assassino]

[His smile widens, and he offers her a han, like a gentleman.]

Shall we, then?

[molotov]

[Molotov laughs, but takes his hand.]

Do not get my hopes up for a joke, Ezio!

[Read: "I really like beating men's faces in."]

[assassino]

[He stands and pulls her with him.]

It is not a joke, I assure you.

[molotov]

[Molotov stands and drags her cigarette down. No sense in letting it go to waste! She grinds the butt out in the grass before launching herself at him.]

[assassino]

[He chuckles, even as he meets her halfway, intending to use her own momentum to flip her to the ground.]