#ac3 oc

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i. | BEGINNINGS | THERESE

Edel’s childhood was one of isolation. An ironic twist of fate, considering how her mother was raised under Marin Rothechild (“Sloth”).

In the years following Lloyd’s death, Therese steadily declined. Her cries of anguish filled the house (the very house she witnessed her guardian die in), alongside the sounds of ceramic and fine china breaking. Maids rarely stayed working in the house for long, for they could not stand their mad mistress’ hysterical ramblings and sobs and drastic shifts in her personality. Therese had planned a life of loving and familial warmth with Lloyd and their child, so close to finally achieving what she so yearned for, yet it was ripped from her once again.

Grief and guilt were unkind to Therese, yet even more so to Edel.

A father’s daughter, cursed to harbor the disdain towards him on her back. O young child, weep not. For she will not hear your cries, as he had not heard hers.

Young Edel, who knew nothing, only watched—huddled to her nursemaid, staring at the odd woman she was to call her mother who rejected her entirely. Young Edel, in her small age and petite body, would cry in hopes of gaining her mother’s attention. Tug at her dress, hoping the now limp woman would pay her some attention. Make a mess in the garden, in hopes she would scold her. Catch a cold, in hopes she would fuss over her.

Yet, Therese knew, the kindest thing she could do to her poor daughter was to distance herself away. She could not bear the idea of hurting her daughter, even if her distance emotionally scarred Edel.

In 1760, when Edel turned 4, unable to trust herself with the sheer load of guilt plaguing her, Therese chose to part with her daughter, sending her away to the care of a close associate, Daniel Raul Hillton. She turned her back to her daughter’s cries and begs, refusing to once look back while Daniel gently ushered Edel away.

———

ii. | CHILDHOOD | DANIEL

Daniel knew the Levesque siblings well. After all, he sired Antonio after the latter ran away from the grasps of the French Templar Order, though regrettably, he could not arrange for Therese to meet with her long-lost brother (under Antonio’s wishes) or let Therese know he once knew Antonio.

He was close associates with Lloyd who had been growing disillusioned with his family’s longstanding faith. Until Lloyd’s passing, that was. Through Lloyd, he came to know Therese, and saw in her another child who was ruined by the Seven in the Order. After Lloyd’s death, he had worked very closely with the Caldecott-Rothechild estate’s maids in order to ensure the running of the house and the caretaking of Therese’s daughter.

To Edel, he was not a foreign presence. He was like a godfather to her, or an uncle, or grandfather. And now, he became her adoptive father.

Daniel himself was once an assistant associate under Reginald Birch, though immediately distanced himself upon realising what Birch had done to Edward Kenway’s family. Since then, he became a devout assassin, and soon rose the ranks to becoming a master assassin. Following in his late lover’s wishes, he had been a privateer and merchant, sailing to and from Britain for his business whilst working with various Brotherhoods to curb the influence of the Order.

And now he took a young girl as his ward, as his daughter. He absolutely doted on her, alongside his quartermaster, Jackson Black, acting like her uncle.

Edel soon opened up to Daniel with his fatherly warmth and patience, and he soon came to realise the bubbly inner world the girl had hidden behind the tumultuous household she was raised in until then. She was curious and merry, with her eyes as bright and blue as the oceans he sailed across.. Through the crew upon Daniel’s ship, The Ambassador, Edel became fluent in the likes of Gaelic vulgarities and sailor speak.

Daniel never once allowed Edel to call him ‘father’ or the like. He called himself Edel’s father, guardian, paternal figure—but never once did he allow Edel to call him that title. In his mind, he may adore the young girl as his own, but always made sure she knew the names of her biological parents, even if Edel grew up to reject them. Instead, she called him “Terry”, after mistaking him for a different crewmate, and having the wrong name stuck. The crew affectionately called her “Daky”, after she misspelled the nickname “Delly” as “Daky” while practicing her letters.

With The Ambassador and Daniel, Edel grew up learning her letters and Gaelic (properly; not just the cuss words), while sailing around South Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa and the West Indies. To her, she had long denounced her mother, and embraced the ship as her family and life. She was raised on the sea, and adored every second on the ship. At different ports, she relished in exploring different cultures with her guardian, or learning how to fight with her uncles. She also learned how to pickpocket from Jackson, even if Daniel disapproved of it. Though Daniel was her main teacher in marksmanship and swordsmanship, her uncles all taught her snippets of how to fight in more casual settings. She also enjoyed exploring islands, from which her agility improved greatly.

Edel adored Daniel. To her, he was her father, her family.

The issues arose when Daniel brought the ship to the ports of Boston in December 1769.

It was supposed to be a supply trip to aid the Brotherhood stationed in Boston. It was not even the first time The Ambassador had docked in the American colonies. They were supposed to move to Nassau and the rest of the West Indies to make a loop, before returning to Portugal to rest there for a few months.

Yet, the day before they departed, when the ship was quiet with just the two talking about the ship’s logistics, two figures approached the docked ship at the port.

He was the first to notice them. And Daniel’s face turned pale, before he quickly ushered Edel to climb towards the crow’s nest. 

The young girl had barely just reached the top, when the two entered the ship. She didn’t get a good glance, nor did she have the time to, before there was a gunshot that rang out.

“I do not remember his last words, and forever that is a guilt I shall bear till I lay in my grave. All I remember was his kind smile and the warm crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He would always smile. Perhaps that was his sin, being far too kind.”

In December 1769, Edel witnessed Daniel’s death.

Lying there, frozen stiff with fear and shock, unable to move as she watched the two leave the ship. Only once she saw them leave did she rush down. Bleeding all over the upper decks was Daniel, with the blood seeping through the wooden planks, as she clutched onto him, too afraid to cry out in fear they would return for her.

———

iii. | ADOLESCENCE | BROTHERHOOD

News of Daniel’s death unnerved the crew. It wasn’t long until Edel realised that many men she once knew to be respectable sailors all fled away (some further inland, some out of the port and seeking other ships). What she knew to be a family had disbanded almost overnight, leaving just her and Jackson alone.

The two buried Daniel at the outskirts of Boston, only for her to learn of Jackson hoping to sell the ship. Crying out about their safety, and how she should not be associated with him lest the Templars, Jackson chased her away, forcing her to scramble out into the city of Boston in the dead of night, forcing her to abandon everything she had known and leaving her to fend for herself.

And so the lass ran. Chest marked with the clench and ache of loss and anger towards the unknown, she just ran. 

In the large city, where she knew no one, Edel began her life as a street urchin. She lived off scraps, pickpocketing, attempting to associate with other street urchins and children that roamed the street.

She was soon spotted by a mercenary leader, Glenn Kirk, after she was found attempting to steal from the latter’s tavern. It was then she, at last, was given access to proper food and shelter and clothes, after Glenn took pity on the young girl. It was also around then she was introduced to the group of other adolescent children who loitered around street gangs and other orphaned children. She began tucking her hair under hats, in order to seem more like a boy as well.

Her orphanhood. For Edel, the revelation sunk in then.

Still, during her time with the other street urchins, Edel proved herself useful in better-than-average combat and agility. She slowly gained new allies, even if their activities consisted of mostly breaking-and-entering, theft, vandalism, etc. To her, it was survival, and if what the gang did helped feed her, how could she complain?

She began slipping away from Glenn’s gaze, growing bold in her endeavours. Edel was still starving and meals were seldom regular, but through her life on the streets, she caught whispers of news regarding the fallen Brotherhood. It was the start of her growing obsession to find the fallen links.

And, in early 1771, the gang of street urchins was caught whilst trespassing, marking Edel’s first direct encounter with the Order.

For a few months prior, they had been messing around with packages that operated under the noses of authorities (essentially items on the black market). Unbeknownst to the teenagers—of course, they were just reckless youths—they were toying with Thomas Hickey’s items. Upon capture, Hickey assumed they were young lackeys for lingering assassins. Feeling a need to tie all ‘loose ends’ of the Brotherhood’s fall in 1763, his men were ordered to dispose of the teenagers. They were just street urchins after all.

Only Edel escaped.

After days of starvation and assault from his men, she escaped. Running through the woods, with hounds hot on her trail, body covered in bruises and injuries. Finally she found a farmhouse outside of Boston, which she hid in the barn. Her aching body was found on top of the stack of hay in the morning by the elderly couple who owned the barn, who took her pitiful state in. Covered in blood and dirt, her old clothes—clothes she wore since Daniel’s death—were ill-fitting, and her hair was all matted with filth.

She spent a month recovering in the farmhouse. Weaving in and out for consciousness for the first week, a fever had wracked her body, her breaking out in cold sweat and shivers while the old woman, Mrs Crombe, took care of her. They bathed and fed her, and insisted she had little reason to pay them back. Through the delirious fever and fear from such an ordeal, she spent a few months adjusting to the quiet farmhouse life, and not jumping at every sound and movement. It was also during her stay with the Crombes that she sought the companionship of one of the foxes that visited the barn regularly, which soon grew to trust Edel and follow her around. She named it Wilde.

If Edel had the gnawing desire to find the remaining bits of the Brotherhood before, then during this time it became a full-blown obsession. The moment she could stand, she tried to set out to seek the Davenport homestead in Massachusetts. The Crombes gave her their horse, some clothes and food for her journey (which she vowed to repay later on). Wilde followed her on her journey, and proved to be a constant companion from then on.

In 1772, upon reaching the Davenport homestead, Edel was initially met with expected hostility. But once she told Achilles the name Levesque (her uncle’s name, Antonio, as Daniel had told her), the old man hesitated but took her in. It was from there she learned of the history of the Brotherhood and the Order in the Colonial Americas, and also when she began planning her plan to avenge Daniel.

For if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog. She sees the sinews of the cheek; the urge to claw and tug and string him like an instrument is a slippery slop. For they all lack the gall to confront a grieving girl in the midst of her vengeful vindication.

And in 1772, she was inducted into the Colonial Brotherhood.

———

iv. | COMING-OF-AGE | ORDER

In 1772, she returned to Boston, where it all started. Yet, unlike in 1769, she had an agenda.

To start, she sought out Elizabeth White. A high-ranking Templar official. Who better to aim for, than someone the Grandmaster himself trusted?

The tragedy of Edel Caldecott was the choice she made to follow in her late uncle’s footsteps. The moment she left the Davenport manner to seek Achilles Davenport, she marked out her fate to end in nothing but her own death. Which she wholly accepted, for she had nothing to lose, after all.

Her first step was to try to persuade Elizabeth to allow Edel to work as an errand girl, or a messenger. Much to surprise, Elizabeth, or Beth, needed little persuasion before she took the girl in. It wasn’t long until Edel started work, though Beth began mentoring the girl personally herself upon noticing Edel’s patchy swordsmanship. Around the same time, Edel reunited with Glenn Kirk as well. She became acquainted with the likes of Haytham Kenway and Henry Charpentier (son of Pierre Charpentier, the assassin hunter who had ordered for her uncle’s death, unbeknownst to her).

In 1772, she was inducted into the Order, as a mentee under Elizabeth. Edel’s role in the Order grew quickly, due to her association with Beth. She was fed better under Beth’s tutelage, she was clothed and given shelter, alongside Wilde. All the while, she began her private investigation as to Daniel’s death and how to aid the Brotherhood as subtle as she could. 

In the later half of 1773, she finally encountered Connor. She knew of him from months of correspondence with Achilles, but Connor had little knowledge of her other than when he saw her with the Order. Naturally, he distrusted her even after knowing she was an Assassin. Still, she started working with him, though discreetly, in order to hide the fact of her double role. It took him a while to get used to her, and for them to begin working together as a duo.

Around the same time, she began working with the orphanage in Boston during her spare time, teaching children how to read and write, staging self-written play performances. All in hopes that the children could have a silver of better future and not fall into the pitfalls she did when Daniel passed.

Throughout her time with both the Brotherhood and the Order, Edel worked with Connor often to help mend the Davenport homestead and regrow its community in hopes of bringing the Brotherhood back to its glory days. Beth and Haytham knew little of their relationship, other than that they knew each other’s faces. Edel took care to ensure her tracks were all covered. She wasn’t one to leave loose ends untied, unlike Hickey, whom she sought some degree of pleasure knowing the man who killed her peers back then died to Connor’s hands.

Beyond her close relationships with Beth and Haytham, she started to grow acquainted with Henry Charpentier. To her, through his facade, she was reminded of Daniel, ultimately leading her to consider him a friend. It was also during then when her investigation was beginning, and when Charpentier started planting seeds of doubt in her mind about Haytham’s leadership. Hints of how Antonio Levesque died, hints of how The Ambassador was sold and utilised by the Order under the Grandmaster’s ruling. Because, unbeknownst to her, Charpentier’s ambitions went beyond being an assassin hunter. His intentions were similar to his father’s; gain control of an influential figure in the Order to utilize them as his puppet and gain leadership in the colonies.

Yet it came to light, and she started learning the truth. The truth that it was through Charpentier’s orders that her uncle had died, that Daniel’s presence in Boston was known in 1769 and thus was killed when they docked here. The truth that Charpentier was responsible for her late adoptive father’s death, and how Haytham and Beth were the two people she saw aboard The Ambassador. In late 1775, her campaign turned against Charpentier, despite his attempts to weaponise the new young member for his own gains.

In 1776, she hunted down Charpentier. Blinded by rage, she was unable to kill him, but the job was finished by Beth executing Charpentier afterwards. 

The thought that his infectious, curdled blood taints her wounds fills her with a shudder. The taste of blood and vengeance so sweet, so saccharine with the promise of forsaken catharsis, she shudders like a starved dog who's caught whiff of a butcher's cut. Perhaps not even the stray dogs would lick upon the worm's mangled flesh nor offals nor the veloute of his blood; not even the region kites would seek to fatten themselves with him.

Beyond Charpentier’s death, she continued with her ‘plan’, though it began growing ambiguous. From 1772 to 1776 she had grown close to Beth, until she started seeing her as a mother figure. What was a joke of calling Beth ‘mama’ soon became a regular occurrence. Beth held her as she cried bitter tears of anger and grief after Charpentier’s death, and fulfilled the revenge she so wished to carry out. Beth became the one person in her life who embraced her parental ties with Edel, and unofficially adopted the young girl as her own ward.

Her control of her circumstances started fraying. With Haytham working with his son in capturing Benjamin Church, the extended duration of time spent with Connor, Haytham and Beth all aware of each other began putting a strain on her role as a mole for the assassins. Still, she continued supporting the Brotherhood and Connor, aiding him and joining his side whenever her duties allowed her. It was also around then that guilt cemented itself on her conscience, a fate shared by her uncle in the later years of his life.

It was during 1777 when she received a letter from Therese, who came to learn of her daughter’s survival and location in America. Through her letter, Edel learned of Therese’s remarriage to James Lawrence (an aristocrat within the Templar Order) and how she gave birth to Edel’s half-sister. She burned the letter.

In 1778, she was travelling back from Monmouth alongside Connor when she came to know that Jackson was invited to the Davenport homestead, as Daniel’s old crew. When Edel confronted Jackson, he fell onto his knees, begging for forgiveness which she did not give (she could not, how was she to trust and forgive a man who had abandoned her when she needed him the most?). It took a few months for her to finally open up to him once more, and she learned of his advanced tuberculosis. Edel sat by his bedside on the day he passed. Upon returning back to Beth and Haytham, she wept over the loss of the final connection she had to Daniel.

In 1779, aged 23, she began getting tangled further with the revolutionary war. Whilst on a mission with Connor, she was caught between a crossfire.

On 19 December 1779, Edel died of her wounds, bleeding out in Connor’s arms.

Daniel’s grave was relocated to a cemetery in Boston. She was buried next to Daniel, as per her wishes.

———

ADDITIONAL NOTES

-> Inspiration for Edel are Brave (2012), Amicia de Rune from A Plague’s Tale: Innocence and A Plague’s Tale: Requiem. As well as Hamlet. - The themes of daughterhood and being a child-of-war are things very prevalent in Edel’s story. -> Edel’s symbolism deals with buttercups (flower), lambs, foxes, guardian angels, the ocean. - Wilde, her pet fox, dies a few months after her. -> Elizabeth plays the role of Edel’s ‘guardian angel’ and mother. -> Edel wears her late uncle’s black coat and hidden blade after being taken in by Elizabeth. - She is made known of this fact after Haytham finds her wearing it. -> Elizabeth and Haytham are made known of the fact of her double agent role posthumously. Despite her concerns, they harbored little to no resentment towards her.

———

“I did not know…”

“There was no way for you to know.”

“Had I known…”

“I would never have let you see such sides of me.”

She weeps, and his world crumbles. In the dark, empty church, he kneels. For her. Desperate that she would not abandon him as God had, that his dove would not fly off at the sheer sight of blood which coats his boots and scruffy black hair, like a sticky sheen that he cannot scrub off no matter what he does. 

Pray do not leave me. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, clutching her hands so tightly. Her soft, unmarred, perfect, gentle hands. Oh how he yearns for her to touch her like he is no monster as he believes he is. But for an angel to grace him with her touch, or for him to stain her unmarked flesh— what a sin! “I’m sorry. Please stay. It doesn’t have to change anything. Please.”

“Why would I leave?” She cries out, tears blurring those doe eyes that shatters his self the more he stares. She tugs at his shoulders, trying to pull him up. Desperation blabbers on her tear-stained lips. She cries. “Stand, please! I would never— So please stand up!”

He cannot. 

This is his last act of reverence. Of love.

Just as he does not dare raise his head to meet her eyes. Eyes blessed by Demeter herself, of the worldly calm he so desires to be a part of.

Yet why does she still plead to him, when it should be the other way around? “You have done no wrong. Why do you apologise, still?” Her voice is strained with anguish, her hands digging into his shoulders, his arms, anything, anything to get him up. “Antonio, for the love of God, please stand up and face me as you should!”

He cannot. 

He weeps. Tears feel like the angry hot whip’s lashes that scar his back, as they trail down in rivulets down his cheeks, dampening the dusty wooden planks beneath him. His hands curl into fists, nails digging into the flesh of his palms until he feels the sting and dampening of his skin, and the way blood seeps under his nails.

God, does he deserve this?

I can offer you so much, my dear. If it is my warmth, you may siphon it all. If it is my heart, you may tear it out. Your love is mercy, and every bit I spend basking in it is my elysium.

She collapses to her knees. Chest heaving with ache, as she runs her hands up his cheek, forcing him to lift his shameful head.

Yet my presence to you is the filth of the earth ruining your pretty hands and soiling the ground you stand on. My selfishness and greed unbecomes of you.

“Forsake the thought.” Her voice, yet her voice, surges another wave of tears to burn his eyes. Her gentle touches, which he is so undeserving of, covers every inch she can see of him, as if to replace His— “You are here. You are with me. I choose to be here, no?”

He can hardly respond, not when sobs wrack his shoulder and he heaves for air, her air. Sounds of anguish fill the stale building, flooding the wretched place with his cries. He cries his heart out, like a child of grief and torment.

Why does she not leave?

Yet all she does is pull him closer, embracing him tightly as he rests his head against her shoulder. Her hand caresses his hair, combing out the treacly locks of its mire, while the other keeps him close.

“They were so, so cruel to you.” Her voice trembles, and his sobs deepen. “Oh God, I am here now. Let me wash you of your past, let me relieve the burden from your shoulders, my dearest.”

Still, you look upon me as if I am worthy of the commonfolk’s gaze. As if I am worthy of being a human.

“If I could not help you then, at least let me help you now. I will lower myself if I have to, if it means I get to see your face and hold you in my arms. I will kneel and beg and plead if it means you will be at peace.”

What can he provide her in return? But whatever pathetic scraps remaining of his lean body and deteriorated mind?

Finally, he dares enough to meet her gaze, and lifting his head feels like a tremendous task, yet he does. Because, by Jove, he would do anything for her. If it pleases her, if it makes her happy—

If it is I that you require for contentment and merriment, I would. I would.

Her eyes. Once so innocent, and now she bares herself vulnerable to him. As he does for her.

A hand rises to her cheek. The other clutches at her arm.

Even now, she stares at him with hope. So much hope that it makes his heart clench and twist.

“I love you.” A pitiful whisper from his chapped lips.

His vows. For her.

———

———

OVERVIEW

Born in Marseille, France—April 1727—Antonio was born to Joseph and Genevieve Levesque. In 1732, his younger sister, Therese, was born. Genevieve D’Albertine Levesque was an assassin from Guyenne, whose family had long existed in French territories as Gauls.

Her identity was solid; her husband’s was not. 

Originally born in Ireland, Joseph’s birth name (“Cathal”) and heritage were long lost to him. With no surname or name, he was given an alias of “Faust”. Operating between the British and French territories, his only identity soon became one of a madman…and a weapon for the European brotherhood to utilize their enemies. He had adopted his wife’s surname, and later chosen the name “Joseph” for himself — after the carpenter Joseph from the Bible.

Both Antonio and Therese were raised in the Mediterranean, coastal city of Marseille alongside some members of their maternal family and their parents. The two children shared their father’s near-icy green eyes— Antonio had jet black hair like his mother, Therese had light brown hair like her father.

In 1736, whilst in Troyes, France, seeking a Spanish informant to relocate south, Joseph and Genevieve were targeted and assassinated by the Templar Order, leaving their two children behind. Reginald Birch took Antonio in, whilst Marin Rothechild (“Sloth”) took Therse under his care. The two never once reunited beyond this separation.

———

JOSEPH | FAUST

From a young age, “Faust” was seen as ‘mad’ by society. 

Spoils of human trafficking — son of an Irish pirate, whose ship was conquered by the British assassins. The assassins who kept him under lock and key, and trained him since young across the British isles and French lands.

Not much is known about “Faust” beyond his life with his wife. Few surviving sources from the British brotherhood suggest that his birth name was Cathal. His exact date of birth is also unknown, and many details were filled in by himself later on.

“Faust” had hallucinations and severe delusions. Of monsters. Of beasts. “Faust” grew to be a tall and herculean young man. And the Brotherhood relished in his aggression. They sought to drag it out. They saw him as the beast that was efficient in carrying out carnage against their enemies. The Templar Order feared this formidable force.

And every beast is to be placated. Its thirst for blood or flesh must be quenched.

"Well, well. A hunter, is it? Beasts everywhere.

I like the smell of this hunter already."

"Beasts, and beasts, and beasts, and beasts."

Genevieve Levesque was a bright-eyed novice in the French Brotherhood when she was dragged along to the cells he was kept in. A sacrifice, they said, a young lass would quell the mad lad’s increasing agitation. Even an experienced assassin could not rein in “Faust”. A wild, untameable beast. Be it he mauled her to death or otherwise, they didn’t care about her.

The unfortunate girl. Clearly nervous. He was this mad man rambling about beasts and the stench of blood and death. Of course she's going to be afraid.

Joseph did nothing of the sort, however.

 She just started lashing out into a rapid fire of French scolding before he could sneer another sentence at her. And oddly, he fell silent, and let her berate him. With him sitting at one corner of his cell, quiet and knees tucked to his chest, and she sat at the other, she survived the night. The next. And the next.

So when after a few days, a few assassins came to dispose of her supposed body from his cell, they were surprised to find her still alive, asleep at the furthest corner of the cell, with Joseph just maintaining his distance. Hardly did they know, all the girl did was talk to the ‘mad lad’ as she would a normal person, even if the boy spoke broken French and continued intermittent ramblings of beasts. What those assassins never realised was that Joseph was overstimulated and abused in that tiny cell, left to rot with his own thoughts and hallucinations.

Sooner or later, he managed to escape the grasp of the British brotherhood, and he took that French girl with him.

They sought out Southern France together, where she returned to Guyenne to her family. He learns letters and writing from her. She introduces him to Catholicism, and he begins to read the Bible, from which he chose the name “Joseph” for himself. He picked up carpentry, but maintained contact with the Spanish or French assassins. He settled down. Not entirely "cured" but learned to mask or keep to himself.

For the rest of his life he held hatred against the British assassins, and begrudgingly accepted the French brotherhood. But never was he violent towards Genevieve. Not once. Genevieve taught him how to be human, when all he learned in his life was to be a beast. Genevieve saw him as a person, and not a weapon or tool. 

It wasn’t long after they wedded and moved to the coastal city of Marseille, where Joseph continued his carpentry work while they grew their own family. He let his wife name their daughter because he thought his wife would be better at giving pretty names to pretty things. And he named his son, giving Antonio the middle name “Faustin” as homage to his own dreaded past (even if this name would soon be lost to Antonio). Despite how the British assassins thought of him only capable of violence, he never laid a finger on his wife or children, or raised his voice at them.

Joseph in his later years saw himself as a ruined man.

The sins he committed under the grooming and harsh abuse of the Brotherhood were like the filth unwavering and clinging to his person. The only times his mental health deteriorated were when the thoughts came creeping back in, and Genevieve found him sitting at the pews, repeating prayer after prayer feverishly in hopes of cleansing himself. His only salvation would be his wife, who would ground him until he calms. 

Joseph led a life of retirement in Marseille. Even if he trained budding novice assassins, he never wielded another weapon that wasn’t an axe or a knife. He refused to.

Still. Neither the likes of Pierre Charpentier, Reginald Birch nor Christian Raynott liked the idea of a threat lingering above their heads.

So in 1736, when the family was visiting Troyes to see an informant about moving to Spain, they were ambushed.

———

———

And no more will I hesitate before you,

Father dearest.

The tang of iron fills her lungs.

It's acrid. It burns its way down her throat and she can taste it in the air with each pummel. It's sickly.

The harsh squelch of her fist pounding against the messy canvas of a carcass once belonging to a man. Long gone is the structural integrity of his skull. An eye rolls down the filthy warehouse floor, with the viscous liquid that sheens and splotches off the smooth gelatinous sphere.

For if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog.

But even a dead dog knows to heel. This one...this one beneath her does not. His hands weakly claw at her arms, twitching uselessly by his side. His vocal cords have long been crushed, the strained whistling and suckling of air mere wisps.

The thought that his infectious, curdled blood taints her wounds fills her with a shudder. The taste of blood and vengeance so sweet, so saccharine with the promise of forsaken catharsis, she shudders like a starved dog who's caught whiff of a butcher's cut. Perhaps not even the stray dogs would lick upon the worm-mangled flesh nor offals nor the veloute of his blood; not even the region kites would seek to fatten themselves with him.

She sees the sinews of the cheek; the urge to claw and tug and string him like an instrument is a slippery slop.

For they all lack the gall to confront a grieving girl in the midst of her vengeful vindication.

Her ears ring with dizzying tinnitus. Her nails are caked with clotted blood. When her tongue darts out to lick the rivulet on the edge of her lips, she tastes the same scent that has filled the air. Or perhaps it is not the air — has she bitten off a chunk of his useless, twitching body? She can't tell. But she knows she has yet to drag the lie from the depths of his conniving lungs, the lies he spins from the air he breathes...

So pray tell, she muses, who is it that dares pry her from her prey?

"Edel— Edel, stop now—"

It's a tangled mess of limbs, of a cadaver, as she scratches at the hands of the man who drags her away.

A snarl rips from her throat. Bloodstained eyes wild as her eyes dart back to Charpentier's lame body, still twitching. "Let go— Let me have at his goddamn heart! I will tear that bastard's lungs out, I will rip his tongue off—"

"Enough! He is already dead!"

She struggles some more, deaf and blind to the world like a feral thing fixating its gaze on its target. Maw drenched with blood, nails digging into the hands of her 'captor' to deter him further— Why won't he let go?

Her frenzied struggling ceases. The roar of blood in her eardrums quells to an eerie tranquility that stretches across the empty space of the warehouse. When the man loosens his grip, once assured that she will no longer bolt towards what remains of Charpentier, her legs buckle and she collapses to the floor.

"I need— I have to...I need to—"

"No more. No more now, you've done enough..."

"No." The cry that leaves her lips is a strangled, anguished sound, bubbling up amidst all the blood that stains her skin, akin to the way soft gurgling sounds occasionally puncture the quietude of the air. She shakes her head, as she feels a heavy shroud blanket her shaking shoulders. "No, no, no, no, no—"

He must be saying something. He? Haytham, or Daniel? She can hardly tell who, when the only air that fills her chest is the one of her own cries. Through the blurry haze of her tears, she can see a silhouette in the distance, as hands gently lift her to her feet and veer her away from the sight. Warm hands on her quivering shoulders. Hands with uneven, thin crescent marks where her nails had dug into them. She can hardly tell if it's tears or blood that drips down her cold cheeks.

"—She'll clean up here. Come, you should get cleaned up."

———

———

Cold. Hot.

It sinks into flesh. Clawing. Biting.

Hot.

Hands, tears, blood.

Blinding.

Flesh gets tugged, and in comes the wave of searing, white-hot pain. Floods, tears are that pours in shuddering, staccato heaps.

…Juxtaposed by the constant roaring of blood that drowns out the gleeful mumblings of the Devil above him. Mortal, bodily—wholly. Screams, guttural and bloody, choked on the viscous, coppery honey that seeps through the crevices of the heavy hand clamped over his torn lips. 

Smile, the Devil once told him.

His entire body contorts. Eyes rolling back into his cranium, a full-bodied thrash (or whatever the writhing can be called). Heavy is the weight of the body above, the steady warmth unwavering as sturdy thighs straddle and strap him firmly down onto the floor. Heavy is the hand like a gift wrapping; saving the best for last, as he so graciously says.

Splutters, like the earth cracking with oozing magma. Viscid honey coating the shell of his ear, the curve of his neck, pooling beneath his head.

There is no Escape— ThereisnoEscape—

Something crawls up his esophagus. Clawing, inching.

Dread.

He can’t breathe.

No matter how his shoulder blades ache from the rigidity of his stilted form, or how his nails nearly pry off his finger from how harshly he digs them into Sullivan’s bare forearms, or the dull thuds of his shoes thumping against the carpeted floor, all he can feel, all he is forced to feel, is the scorching heat from the cold, unwavering blade.

There’s laughter from above. Breathy. 

There’s burning in his lungs. A parched, torrid sort of agony.

It creeps into his ear, down his severed cheek. It splatters onto his eye, lashes, hair, mouth, as the hand is ripped away from his lips, trickling rivulets drip, drip, dripping from the tips of his carefully cut, crescent nails.

And from the tip of a silver blade that glints with the ochre light and crimson stain. Noisily, it clatters and clangs as it is tossed aside.

A discarded toy.

Amidst the weak gasps for precious air, his palm engulfs his unmarred cheek, cups the back of his head and runs through the treacly black locks tangled and matted with— Gently, his head is lifted, as his chest heaves and shudders and chokes.

Lifted for inspection under the watchful Amber gaze.

Like Joseph cradling the young Lord. Covered in the blood of the womb, covered in tears.

“Beautiful,” comes the utterance — no, reverence, adoration.

“You did so well,” comes his airy chuckle, even as the boy in his hands still lurch weakly, eyes still roll back with his bloodshot whites visible. “It wasn’t even that deep! See?”

With each admiring swipe of his faux-comforting hand along the jagged edge of his torn flesh, he convulses.

It stings, stings, stings. Hot, hot, hot—

A sob leaves his lips. 

“...And once it heals,” the man sucks in a sharp breath, a wolfish grin curling on his lips as he watches, ever-so keenly, how the boy inadvertently leans into the hand cupping his cheek, desperate to the point of pathos for a degree of escape.

Escape he doesn’t have.

Oh how sweet. How delightfully sweet even his blood is, he thinks, as he draws an intoxicating drag of the saccharine, ripe smell of spilled, youthful ichor. Shivering, as he basks in it. Relishes and savours it.

The thirst deepens.

As it curls its tendrils around the mortal flesh, anchors its claim (as his blade did)—this insatiable little pit for more—he smiles.

“You’ll always be smiling for me."

———

1736 was the year she and her brother were orphaned. A young little child, who knew nothing other than the fact that her parents fell limp onto the ground. Who only knew to cry when she was torn from her brother’s tight grasp.

Cry, cry, cry.

All but a distant memory to her. Therese never reunited with her brother beyond the events in Troyes, France.

Therese was raised by Marin Rothechild in the heart of London, as a nobleman’s daughter. Pretty frills, nursemaids, a governess. Books, lessons. Everything that warranted gratitude. But never love. Never the love of a family, or a warm father figure. Marin Rothechild, a stoic and cold businessman. Uncaring and apathetic for the world around him. The sin of Sloth hung all over him. Sloth, not in inaction, but indecision.

Sloth, as in the indecisiveness of a man, and the inaction that comes from it, until it’s too late to act upon his true desire, no matter how pure or good it may be.

A sin that wrongs not just the person himself, but wrongs the people that may have benefited from him.

Marin never showed a modicum of warmth or love to Therese. To him, she was an accessory, a display of his wealth and airing a veneer of a functioning father-daughter family under the Rothechild name. Under the roof of his home, she was but a tenant living there. No matter how much she yearned for her guardian’s praise or attention, she never once got it. But despite his cruel coldness, Therese did take to him as a duckling to any creature upon birth as its mother.

Therese grew with conflicting emotions when it came to Marin. Torn between wanting his fatherly love and despising him for his inaction.

Thus, when Elizabeth White assassinated Marin Rothechild in 1755, Therese pointed her the way to his office. She watched from the shadows of the corridor, as Marin begged Elizabeth for forgiveness out of his guilt over the years (for burning her father, for orchestrating Edward Kenway and Nathan White’s deaths, and not doing anything about it).

What she did not know was that her guardian had been the man who had disallowed Pierre Charpentier’s attempts to utilise Therese as a glorified trophy. Pierre saw the girl as another method to strengthen the Order’s social connections, and sought to marry her off to his own son or another nobleman. Marin did not heed to Charpentier’s orders. 

After all, the least he could do, as a man wracked with guilt for Therese’s fate, was to set her free. But before he could give her a coming-of-age present (and finally display some fatherly care), he was killed. Marin never once apologised to Therese, true to his “Sloth” nature.

As the sole inheritor of Marin’s fortune, she married a nobleman within the Order in 1755. Lloyd Hadyn Caldecott, a charming and handsome young Englishman, with deep Scottish roots. Her first few steps out of her gilded cage was to marry out of love. To seek the genuine affections she so longed for. In her freedom, she was no longer a commodity of human trade, as many young daughters of the patriarchal society were, but a free woman who now could choose how she wished to live. She took her husband’s surname, becoming Therese Caldecott (nee Levesque).

Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.

Lloyd’s increasing distance from the Order became a note of concern amongst the higher ups. They assumed he was growing closer to the Brotherhood, and would soon betray them. Whilst it was true, they failed to realise his new wife was pregnant with a child. Therese knew of Lloyd’s intentions to change sides to the Brotherhood, and having known bits and pieces of her own family’s heritage, she was willing to go with him. They had contacted Daniel Hillton, and had been making plans to move from London during Therese’s pregnancy.

On 28th June 1756, their daughter, Edel Therese Sephine Caldecott, was born.

On 29th June 1756, Lloyd was killed in a carriage accident.

Edel never knew her father. And Therese grew increasingly unnerved.

For four years, Therese grew more and more distant from her young daughter. Each time she gazed upon her, the indignation of losing her husband, and the bitterness of it, ate her inside out. Each time she stared upon the infant child, all she felt was the rising bile of disgust at the world she lived in. The world was cruel. And Therese retaliated by being cruel to her own daughter.

In the end, by 1760, she passed on her daughter to the guardianship of a close associate named Daniel Hillton (the same who had taken her brother in, unbeknownst to Therese). She drove her own daughter out of her house, in despair and hoped that Edel would seek a better life under Daniel’s gentle and caring parenthood.

Edel grew to detest Therese.

And what Therese never realised was that she had done the same her adoptive father did to her, despite vowing to her husband and herself that their child would never find themselves without love or attention.

It wasn’t long after that Therese was pressured to remarry by the Order. An older man by the name of James Davis Lawrence took her as his new wife. An aloof and indifferent nobleman. Thus, Therese changed her name once more: Therese Caldecott-Lawrence. With Lawrence, she had one daughter. 

Therese lived the rest of her life quietly in London, and died, buried next to her second husband.

———

Charlotte is like one of those people who is impossibly popular. Sure, she’d have a few people who would rudely dislike her. She’s such a nice person to talk to, and she always has this welcoming aura to her. Sometimes strangers would feel welcome to just start talking to her-- which would be problematic at times. 

She can get loud at times and be a little bold and daring, but she has a large amount of patience and compassion and a strong moral compass. In the world of Assassin’s Creed, that can help her garner many friends and enemies. You’d think that she would join the Assassin Order right from the get-go with these qualities, but no, she didn’t join. Sure, there were a lot of times when she teamed up with Connor on his missions at the beginning, when she wanted to know just what kinds of people the Assassins were-- they even gave her a place to stay, too, but she still didn’t join. 

Still, because of the missions she joined up on, along with a few personal missions on her own, she gained the attention of the Templars. Even when she’s roaming the colonies as a simple traveller, she stood out a lot. Even with her race, being a half-Filipino.

Since she was forced back through time via Piece of Eden, there’s a huge risk for her: disease. There were so many close calls-- she was even close to dying at one point, but she survived.

To make her living in the Homestead more bearable, she started speaking Filipino whenever she was alone: sing songs, pretend she was talking to her friends and family, write her entries in Filipino, make some clothes that reminded her of home-- everything she could do she did so that she wouldn’t forget.

When she joined Aveline in one mission in the Louisiana colony, Aveline led her to one of the Manilamen establishments in the bayous. Charlotte had never cried so hard before then.

Before she lived in the Homestead, she used to live with a taverner and his small family. The initial depression after suddenly being separated from her home caused her to frequent the tavern a lot. She made a few drinking buddies after that.

She’s met Haytham a few times before she came across the Assassins, because the taverner used to keep in contact with him. She became their middleman in relaying messages, and her personality intrigued Haytham. He easily figured out that she didn’t belong there at all.

One time while still getting acquainted with Connor they were fishing. Charlotte rolled up her pants legs above her knees which freaked out Connor and waded into the water to catch fish her own way.

Charlotte nursed an injured fox back to health and it stuck around near the Homestead for a very long time.

She didn’t have an arsenal of weapons like Connor: only a machete, dagger, and a flintlock pistol made up her weapons while on mission.

Charlotte gave up on finding a way back home after 7 long years. She had a feeling at the bottom of her heart that her search was futile, but she didn’t want to believe it.

A headcanon I made just to make @the-stray-liger cry: Charlotte and Connor married and had a child, but Charlotte left for a mission and went missing. 10 years later she returned to see their child grown a lot and Connor almost in tears at her return.